


A Scaly Situation (Thank God We Have a Shield)

by janonny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, But no xeno haha, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragon Tony Stark, Knight Steve Rogers, M/M, Magic and Science, Our regular world except there's dragons and magic, Slash, who is not always a dragon...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 09:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14746070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janonny/pseuds/janonny
Summary: It starts with a fight between a dragon and a knight...And becomes so much more, because nothing is as simple as it seems.Excerpt:He roared, letting out a wisp of smoke at the end of the bellow for effect. He flapped his wings as well to impress upon the knight his puny size in comparison to the mighty dragon that stood before him.No dice. The knight advanced another step forward.Tony’s tail swayed behind him in annoyance. This wasn’t going as planned.





	A Scaly Situation (Thank God We Have a Shield)

**Author's Note:**

> It's 25 May now where I am, and I won't have the opportunity to post this later, so up it goes! Thank you to [dksartz](http://dksartz.tumblr.com/) for the inspiring, wonderful art and being an encouraging and awesome RBB partner. Please go look at their lovely art [here](http://dksartz.tumblr.com/post/174230711428/here-it-is-my-part-of-the-cap-im-rbb-im-happy) and reblog!
> 
> More thank yous! Thanks also to the RBB mods who have devoted their time efficiently coordinating this to ensure it's a smooth-running event! And thank you so much to [Simi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen) for the thorough speed beta-reading! >3< You’ve been amazing! As always, I continue to make changes after my fic is beta-read so all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Things you will need to know about this setting: This story is set in a world of medieval fantasy and modern day technology, where it isn’t dissimilar to what we have in real life today in terms of technology, except it also has dragons and magic and archaic concepts. I didn’t get as much worldbuilding as I would have liked into this story, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

“ROAAAAARRRR.”

Tony sounded pretty impressive, if he did say so himself. He had a lot of opportunity to practise his roars, usually when someone came searching for the dragon that needed slaying and he needed to scare them off in a jiffy.

He stretched his long, gleaming neck up, making sure to loom over the latest knight who dared enter the forests. He raised his wings higher for extra effect and admired how his body threw a menacingly gigantic shadow across the grass-covered ground. That should do it. No one ever stayed past this point.

The knight wore a helmet that covered half his face, with little white wings where his ears should be. It was almost too cute. But what marked him as a knight was the armor, made of fine interlocking blue and white scales with a white star across his chest, and the shield he held in front of him. It was a strange-looking shield, looking like a red, white and blue bullseye with a star in the middle. There was obviously a theme here that Tony didn’t get, and Tony didn’t recognize any of the colours or symbols either as any of the close-by noble houses. Was his reputation reaching so far that knights from different states were coming to have a shot at him?

But the bigger issue was not Tony’s infamy. It was that instead of backing off, the knight advanced a step with his shield held in front of him.

That gave Tony a pause.

This had never happened before. Usually, a loud roar and a little posturing was enough to get the knights fleeing. Tony frowned, a wrinkle of red and gold scales between his glowing bright blue eyes.

Maybe he should try again.

“ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!” he roared, letting out a wisp of smoke at the end of the bellow for effect.

He flapped his wings as well to impress upon the knight his puny size in comparison to the mighty dragon that stood before him.

No dice. The knight advanced another step forward.

Tony’s tail swayed behind him in annoyance. This wasn’t going as planned.

The knight suddenly ducked behind a tree, having been inching in that direction without Tony realizing. When nothing happened after a minute or so, Tony craned his neck down and towards the tree. He didn’t want to knock it over, that might actually kill the knight. But if he looked over it…

Then the knight pelted out from the other side of the tree, running at a speed that Tony didn’t think was achievable by humans. The knight tried to ram into Tony’s left foreleg, shield first.

Tony drew his leg in sharply, the knight skidding as he reversed momentum. To his surprise, Tony found himself having to take several steps backwards to avoid being hit by the knight’s consecutive strikes. This was beyond comprehension. He never had to step back from any upstart knights.

Tony growled and roared again, trying to get the knight to back off. But the knight completely ignored the menacing sounds and continued barrelling towards Tony.

Not really knowing what to do at this point, Tony spread his wings and took to the sky. He could see the blue in his chest flaring brighter as he flapped his wings, the magic coiling tighter to defy physics as his large girth lifted off the ground like it was lighter than a feather rather than an absurdly large coil of scales and muscle.

Unable to help himself, Tony’s mouth fell open, tongue lolling out in a mocking draconic grin at the knight, who looked frustrated that his attempts were being so easily thwarted. Tony would have made some choice comments at this point, but he didn’t want the regular folk to know he could talk.  

That was when the knight threw his shield at Tony.

What kind of move—

Tony ducked to the side with a flail of his massive wings, flinching as the shield scraped along his side. It skimmed against his hard scales, denting a couple, and Tony let out a surprised, pained roar. It was rare that a manmade shield could actually injure him. He squinted down at the knight. That was painful for Tony and foolhardy for the knight. Shields were meant to be kept with the knights for protection, not thrown away like that. What was the knight going to do if Tony decided to flambé him now?

The sound of whistling air from the side had Tony turning his head, and he stared in shock as the shield curved in the air and flew straight back towards the knight. The knight leapt into the air and caught it nimbly. If his dragon eyes did not deceive him, that little knight was smirking up at him.

Damnit, surely that had to be magic, although the shield and the knight didn’t _smell_ like magic.

“Release the princess, dragon! I won’t harm you and I’ll leave once you do!” the knight shouted up.

That was yet another unexpected turn of events among a chain of unusual occurrences. Usually, the knights turned up all gung-ho, in gleaming silver armor and promising death. Many boasted about bringing back Tony’s parts for spells, displaying his large red and gold scales as a marvellous trophy, and marrying the princess.

None had promised to spare his life once the princess was rescued. Knights weren’t known for their magnanimity. It was usually a laughable prospect to Tony when the difference in size was considered, even before Tony’s _other_ _skills_ were made known. But seeing the knight’s abilities so far, Tony thought this one might not be as easy to deal with. He had already proven to be more stalwart and courageous than the previous knights.

Tony circled from above, flapping lazily as he gained altitude. He decided on another scare tactic. When he had gained enough height so that the knight and the trees were just small blurry figures in his sights, he suddenly tucked his wings close to his sides and dived downwards like a deadly red and gold arrow. He let out an unearthly screech from the back of his throat, the sound tearing through the air like a siren of death, even as he plummeted with shocking speed.

He could see the knight freeze, staring up with his mouth wide open. Tony continued to arrow down at him, and when the earth was rushing up towards Tony, when Tony could see in greater detail the knight’s shocked expression, he felt swooping relief when the knight suddenly bolted away.

Finally!

Tony threw out his wings to catch the wind and slow his descent. His flight slowed and he reoriented his body, curving his sinuous back so that instead of arrowing down, his plummet turned into a swoop. He flapped his wings and chased after the running knight’s back. He was about to let out a triumphant roar when the knight whipped around and sent the round shield flying at Tony’s face.

Tony tried to swerve, but he was going too fast at this point. He managed to take the hit of the shield in the side of his face instead of square against his forehead, which would have surely knocked him unconscious. Instead, the painful impact against his cheek sent him rolling in the air, before smashing into the ground. Instinct had him tuck his wings close again as he rolled from the momentum, crashing into the trees at great speed before he gradually came to a painful stop.

He groaned, rolling onto his side and moving to get up, when he felt the press of cold metal against his neck.

“I don’t want to kill you, dragon. You seem a lot more intelligent than most beasts, so I hope you understand me. I just want to get the princess free. She doesn’t deserve to be locked up and hoarded,” the knight said, one boot on Tony’s neck.

Tony blinked and looked up at the knight from his awkward position on the ground. The knight’s chest was heaving, his clear blue eyes from such a close distance surprisingly arresting and trained only on Tony’s slitted eyes.

Tony was intrigued, but he wasn’t down for the count yet.

He writhed.

Knights were used to fighting other knights, used to dealing with other humans. They weren’t used to getting this close to great dragons with very flexible necks and bodies, with a long tail. The knight was thrown off-balance too quickly to react, and then Tony’s tail snapped out, knocking him back. The knight flew several feet away but tucked himself into a roll so he got straight back onto his feet.

By the time he was upright, Tony was upright as well, and they were back to their original impasse.

“What on earth is going on here?” a voice cut through the air.

The knight immediately tried to get between the dragon and the newcomer, who was striding towards them amidst the wreckage of the uprooted and smashed trees.

“Lady, get back, it isn’t safe—” the knight said.

Knowing the game was up, Tony sat back with a sigh.

“Pepper, Pepper,” Tony crooned in a low rumble. “It’s not a secret if you show yourself.”

The knight shot Tony a wide-eyed stare, obviously taken aback at the evidence of dragon speech.

Pepper put her hands on her hips. “Hush, the both of you. Knight… whoever you are, I’m perfectly safe right here. Probably safer than you are, if all this mess means anything. And Tony, I’ve only told Rhodey, and you’re only still sulking over that because you wanted to be the one to surprise him as a prank.”

“And now you’re telling someone else. You don’t even know who this knight is,” Tony said, making himself comfortable on the ground with a harrumph.

“I’m Steve Rogers,” the knight said. “Captain of the S.H.I.E.L.D. guard.”

Steve Rogers. Why did that name seem familiar?

Pepper frowned. “I didn’t think S.H.I.E.L.D. was in the princess-rescuing business. Aren’t they special forces in Homeland Security?”

Steve conceded, “No, I don’t think they are interested in princess-rescuing either. Not that you seem like you need much rescuing.”

That was as broad a hint as any.

Tony lay flat on the ground, stretching out along so that his head went by Captain Rogers and nudged Pepper in the side. She huffed, but patted him on his cheek, running a soothing hand over the place where his scales were cracked or dented from Steve’s shield strike.

“I don’t think we should tell Captain Rogers,” Tony said, still disgruntled.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice. I don’t intend for anyone to die over our sham,” Pepper said, scratching obligingly at the scales around his snout, because she knew the exact way to soften him up. “Stop being stubborn just because he didn’t run away the moment you roared at him.”

“It was a good roar,” Tony grumbled.

“It was cute,” Captain Rogers said.

Tony’s head shot up, dislodging Pepper’s hand. “Cute? _Cute_? I’m a dragon, I don’t do _cute_.”

Captain Rogers shrugged. “You looked like you were pretending to be scary, rather than being actually scary. It was cute. I’ve seen angry dragons guarding their hoard before. You weren’t angry, not really.”

Tony was absolutely outraged. “I’ll show you angry, you—”

Pepper laid a calming hand on Tony’s neck and patted him several times.

“Calm down, Tony,” she said. “I did tell you that you were overdoing the angry-dragon-guarding-hoard act.”

Captain Rogers strapped his shield to his back again, and shook his head. “I thought something was strange when I saw that glowing artefact in your chest. Is the dragon being controlled by a human somewhere else?”

“No one controls me! I’m my own dragon,” Tony said, curling an arm protectively around the arc reactor, surprised that Steve had noticed it and relieved that he was clueless about what it was. Not that many people would be able to recognize an arc reactor on sight.

Steve looked doubtful in any case. “And what kind of dragon is called Tony? And what is this about a sham and an act? Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

“First he insults my looks, then he insults my name,” Tony grumbled.

Pepper ignored him. “Is there anyone around, Tony?”

He muttered darkly to himself, even as he got up and reared onto his hind legs. He scanned the forest with his eyes first. Then, he used his keen hearing and smell. His magic whispered through the air as well, but there was nothing nearby. FRIDAY whispered in his ear, saying she detected nothing.

He slid back down onto all fours again and slithered onto his front, relaxing.

“No one around.”

“Captain Rogers, as you must have suspected, I’m Princess Virginia Potts, second-born princess of California, and I haven’t been kidnapped by any dragon,” Pepper said, even as she sat down on Tony’s right foreleg, arranging her long blue skirts demurely.

“Please, call me Steve,” he interjected.

She nodded. “Very well. And you may call me Pepper. It’s the name I’m used to now, after all this time with Tony.”

“And you can call me Iron Dragon,” Tony said, haughtily.

“Iron… Dragon? Why?”

“Because that’s what the media calls me, the Invincible Iron Dragon, since no knight has been able to get even one scale off me.”

“Aren’t dragonfire, scales and magic better than iron?” Steve asked, keeping a remarkably straight face under Tony’s sceptical glare.

“Yes, but the Invincible Dragonfire with Scales and Magic wouldn’t be a very succinct name for the media to use,” Tony pointed out with some irritation.

Pepper rolled her eyes. “As I was saying, I haven’t been kidnapped. It’s more of a… mutual plot. We both have reasons to be hiding from the world. In my case, I don’t want to be nobility, of any sort, anymore. I refuse to be part of an arranged marriage just for political ties. I want to achieve something through my own hard work, rather than it being given to me due to my birth. I have bigger dreams than to be a figurehead and a political chess piece.”

By the end of the speech, Pepper’s chin was tilted up, her beautiful hair ablaze in the light of the setting sun, and her cheeks flushed with determination. Tony smiled fondly down at her, pressing his nose to her shoulder gently. She absently patted his snout.

Steve looked at them both. “So… you pretended to be kidnapped. With the dragon’s help. Sorry, I meant the Iron Dragon’s help.”

The last was said with a hint of a grin, which made Tony scowl at him, as much as a dragon could scowl.

“Yes. Although it didn’t really require much faking,” Pepper said. “I just left home secretly and then we put out news that I had been taken by the new dragon around town, the Iron Dragon of Dume. Every time knights appeared, Tony would scare them off. It hasn’t been too difficult, because no one is taking it that seriously. Everyone knows that princes and princesses in America like to fake a good dragon kidnapping for the publicity. There hasn’t been an actual kidnapping by dragons for decades, after all. I think my father suspects it’s a mutual plot and rather than lose face, he’s just sending a few knights out here occasionally as a formality.”

“Those that do make it here quake in their boots at my intimidating roar,” Tony announced.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Pepper said.

“It was very intimidating,” Steve said agreeably. “The way you squeezed your eyes tight and the way your nostrils flared a lot when you roared looked very frightening.”

“I’m going to eat you,” Tony announced, baring his fangs at Steve, and he knew they were each as long as Steve’s hand. Steve looked unperturbed. He even had the temerity to smile at Tony.

Pepper sighed. “Please stop fighting. Think about the forest and all the animals in it at least.”

Steve looked a little chagrined. “Sorry, Lady, I mean, Pepper. So why did To— I mean, Iron Dragon agree to help you?”

“That’s his story for him to tell,” Pepper said with gentle but firm denial in her voice.

“And I don’t tell strange knights who wear face-covering helmets and mock me,” Tony said haughtily.

“Oh, apologies,” Steve said, seeming to just realize that he still had his half cowl on.

He reached up and pulled back his cowl, shaking free a head of flaxen hair. The cowl had done his face no justice. Even with the imprint of a tight cowl against his skin, Captain Steve Rogers was magnificent to behold. He had a strong jawline and regal features, complete with beautiful, gold hair and lively blue eyes.

Even Pepper drew in a breath at the handsome visage before them.

Steve rubbed a hand through his hair and looked up at Tony. “Will you tell me now?”

“No,” Tony said with a draconic shrug.

Pepper hid a smile behind her hand. “Sorry, Tony takes a while to warm up to people. How about you? Why did S.H.I.E.L.D. send you here?”

“I don’t know,” Steve said, sounding frustrated. “But that’s nothing new. Fury is not exactly a man who shares his true plans. I was told it would be important for the safety of the world to come here, but nothing you have described would endanger the world.”

Pepper tapped a finger against her chin thoughtfully. “Did he say to come rescue me or just to come here?”

Steve thought about it. “That’s a good point. It was just to come here. I did my own investigations on the way and figured it must have been to save the kidnapped princess.”

“Sounds like Fury is plotting something,” Tony said with displeasure.

“We should find out what about,” Pepper said.

Tony sighed, and then looked up at the sky. The sun was almost below the horizon.

“You need to go soon, Pepper. You shouldn’t be travelling home after dark.”

Pepper rolled her eyes. “You might have wings, but you’re much too large to be a mother hen.”

“I’m not wrong,” Tony insisted.

Pepper sighed and got up, dusting off her long skirts. “I guess I’ll head off. I just came by to see Tony, when I heard the fighting. It’s an early morning of work for me, so I shouldn’t be dallying.”

Steve looked at her curiously. “If you don’t mind me asking, what work are you doing?”

Pepper’s cheeks flushed, but she tipped her chin up and said, “I’m an accountant.”

Steve blinked. “You gave up the royal life and title to be an accountant?”

“Yes, but you see, one day, I’ll be the CEO,” Pepper said with a wink.

Then she turned around and pressed a kiss to the side of Tony’s snout, a tiny peck against his much larger face. He snuffled her shoulder agreeably before she patted him on the cheek and then swept off with royal dignity. You could take the princess out of the palace, but you couldn’t take the red carpet and swishing dresses out of the princess. Tony watched until she was out of sight, and then listened until he heard her climb into her small car and drive out of the forest.

Tony remained on his front, as relaxed as he could manage.

Steve looked at Tony curiously. “I understand why Pepper pretended to be kidnapped, because she didn’t want to be a princess anymore. What are you getting from pretending to be a kidnapper of princesses?”

“You’re not wheedling an answer out of me that easily,” Tony said, but he knew he sounded amused. Steve was just so forthright and without pretension, going straight for what he wanted to know. It was a fresh of breath air.

Steve shrugged. “Can’t hurt to ask. I’ve never met a dragon who could talk before. This is the first time I can ask what their intentions are.”

Tony asked with some wariness, “Have you fought many dragons?”

“A few,” Steve said.

“And how many did you ‘accidentally’ kill?” Tony asked, trying to keep his voice neutral but probably missing by a mile.

“Only one. It wasn’t one I could stop without killing,” Steve said, sounding a little regretful even as he met Tony’s gaze without flinching.

The answer surprised Tony because with Steve’s demonstrated experience, Tony would have guessed that Steve fought and killed a lot of dragons, and the scepticism must have been clear on his face because Steve shook his head in return.

He explained, “I’ve only fought dragons at war, outside of America. Most dragons I met were being used as guard animals to the enemy’s bases. They were mostly starved and ill-treated. Half the time, I would just release them from their chains and they would attack their own guards instead. The other half, I tried to tire them so that Buc— I mean, my sniper could take them down with a tranquilizer. But if that wasn’t possible, I fought.”

Tony looked at those lips pressed tight together, sharp jaw firmly set. Steve met Tony’s draconic gaze with steady blue eyes, and Tony felt reluctant admiration for this knight.

“You said earlier that you hadn’t met a dragon who could talk before,” Tony said.

Steve rolled with the non-sequitur easily. “Yes, I haven’t. Does it have to do with the glowing artefact embedded in your chest? Does it enhance your intelligence?”

Tony shifted to move the arc reactor out of Steve’s view. He eyed Steve suspiciously, but those blue eyes only looked curious.

“The artefact has nothing to do with my intelligence,” Tony explained. “I’m unique to my species. You shouldn’t be meeting other dragons expecting them to be like me.”

Steve cocked his head at him. “Why are you different?”

“Because I’m a genius,” Tony said with a roll of his eyes.

“And modest too,” Steve shot back.

Tony huffed out a smoky breath. “Why aren’t you afraid of me? Is your fear response broken?”

Steve smiled, and then explained, “You weren’t seriously trying to kill or hurt me. It was hard to be afraid once I realized that.”

Tony was intrigued and impressed, because there really weren’t many people who could so calmly and accurately assess the situation when there was several tonnes of roaring dragon with large teeth barrelling towards you. Steve must have significant combat experience and be rather good at strategic assessment on the fly. But he wasn’t going to say all that. He didn’t think it was normal to have dragons singing praises for knights who had just tried to kill them.

“How did you get here? I usually get more warning when I hear the knights arrive on horseback or in cars, depending on how traditional they are,” Tony said, deciding to change the subject so as not to dwell on his personal lack of scariness.

“I hitched a ride to the forest from the City of Ma’libu and then hiked in. I wanted the element of surprise,” Steve explained.

Another sign of his intelligence. Tony hadn’t ever met a knight who had planned so far in advance.

A thought occurred to Tony. “So how are you going back? It’ll be late by the time you clear the forest; there won’t be many cars passing by, so you won’t likely be able to hitch a ride back.”

“I’ll walk,” Steve said simply.

“That’ll take you hours,” Tony said, incredulous.

“I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.”

Tony stared at him, his tail swaying with irritation. What a strange man. He considered letting Steve trek back out, walk in the dark on his own for hours. Steve had proven that he could take care of himself well enough, but the thought of his lone figure trudging along the street sent a pang of pity through Tony.

He groaned and got up, shaking his large head. “You’re a ridiculous knight. You had better come with me instead.”

He gave himself a full body wriggle, shaking the dust off him. Steve took a step back, waving his hand in front of his face to clear the cloud of dust.

“What do you mean? Go with you where?” Steve asked, confused.

“Come with me back to my lair,” Tony said. “You can spend the night, instead of walking through the night to reach civilization. Pepper would give me a hard time if I let you make that journey like that.”

Steve hesitated. “I’m not sure a dragon’s lair would be preferable to a night on the road. No offence, but I’m not a dragon.”

“Say that again when you’ve seen my lair,” Tony said smugly.

Steve looked sceptical, but he followed when Tony turned to go.

# # # # # #

It was surprising how well Steve kept up with Tony’s far larger strides. Of course, Tony could have used his wings and flown, but then he would have to offer Steve a ride, and they hadn’t reached that level of trust yet. Steve kept up without tiring anyway, without a word of complaint and never slowing down, even when they started scaling the sheer mountainside.

Tony rather thought that Steve would have needed some help there, maybe to hold on to Tony’s tail as he was pulled up. Instead, Steve climbed the unforgiving mountain effortlessly, pulling himself up the sheer rock face with barely any footholds available.

They were halfway to the top when Tony pulled himself up and right _through_ what looked to be completely-solid mountain wall. He heard Steve’s exclamation of surprise, and smirked to himself. The illusion he had set up was perfect, covering the large cave entrance with what looked to be a seamless continuation of the rocky mountain.

By the time Steve had climbed up and come in tentatively through the illusion, Tony was at the end of the long and narrow natural tunnel. There were scattered riches in the tunnel, exactly like what a hedonist dragon would leave around its lair.

But more importantly, there was another illusion spell at the back of the tunnel, making a large metal door look like a natural cave wall. Tony pressed a wing to it, letting the magic register his presence, and slipped in the moment the door was fully opened. Using a large talon, he quickly shuffled a few less discreet items he had out in the open into a big box of scraps, before covering it all up with a drop cloth. Then, Tony turned around and settled into the side of the large circular cavern, choosing the best position to observe Steve’s reaction.

He wasn’t disappointed.

Steve walked out of the dark tunnel into the blue-lit cavern and came to a complete stop. His eyes widened, and he looked around slowly with an open mouth. He took another tentative step into the cavern, as if he were unconsciously drawn into the dragon’s lair, spinning around with his head craned back to admire the entire place.

Tony knew his lair was impressive. It was large enough to house several dragons comfortably, with echoing high ceilings and rock walls that were blasted silk smooth through magic and fire. There were various platforms, most of them small, but there was one large shelf that was high enough up one side of the cavern that Tony could examine items on the shelf while in a comfortable sitting position. A lot of the smaller stone tables and shelves were covered in all manner of mechanical devices, made of metal, rock, soil, plants, anything at all that had Tony’s fancy.

In the middle of the cavern, floating near the ceiling, was a pulsing blue sphere of light, with strings of white runes flowing around and through the globe at an endless, peaceful spin. Steve turned to stare at it when it lowered slowly to stop in the middle of the room.

“Good evening, Sir. I see you have a guest.”

Steve jumped, reaching for his shield on his back instinctively.

“Please don’t throw that shield at JARVIS,” Tony said, before letting out a huff of smoke. “That will make him grumpy.”

“I’m never grumpy. Sir.”

“Uh huh.”

Steve put his hand down, visibly relaxing his stance. “Good day. I’m Steve Rogers. Who am I addressing?”

Tony was reluctantly pleased. He let very few people into his lair, but Steve was the first to address JARVIS directly, and he hadn’t thrown a fit either.

“I am JARVIS, and I’m an enhanced water sprite.”

“Water sprite? I’m sorry, I don’t mean any offence, but you seem, um, a little too…” Steve trailed off as he looked for the least offensive term to use and failed to find one.

JARVIS suggested, “Quick-witted? Coherent? Intelligent?”

Steve looked abashed. “Different. I would say different to the regular water sprites I’ve spoken to.”

“I doubt there was much speaking involved,” Tony said idly. “Probably you asked for some directions, the water sprite burbled and laughed, told you what’s upstream and downstream and how the weather affects its waters, and then splashed some water on you. Water sprites have different priorities to sentient beings with a more permanent shape.”

“It’s hard to understand human priorities when you don’t have the same necessities and interests,” JARVIS agreed. “I was rather different to the others even before, in any case.”

Steve looked puzzled. “Before?”

“Before Sir came upon my almost dried-up pond, and I asked if he could take me with him. I was a very impertinent sprite,” JARVIS said.

“Was? You still are,” Tony interjected.

“I continue to learn from the best,” JARVIS said. “Sir took me back to his workshop here and asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to be of use; I didn’t want to be beholden to water or weather. And he weaved the most complex magic you will ever see to hold my form, my magical core, to allow my magic to inhabit technology.”

“Turned out, with a large pool of magic to draw on and with years of access to magic, tech and the internet, JARVIS evolved into a very different being. He’s one of a kind now,” Tony said, a note of pride in his voice.

“I’m blushing, sir.”

“A one of a kind pain in my ass.”

Steve stepped forward, looking up at JARVIS. “That… That sounds incredible. I don’t think I fully understand it yet, but that you’re not tied to your water source anymore, and that you’re talking like this… It’s really impressive. I’ve only ever seen sprites combined with technology as some kind of parlour trick.”

“It’s still mostly used for parlour tricks,” Tony said, thinking about the little sprites that were enslaved or bribed to move things around, usually just to demonstrate how much magic some great sorcerer had to waste. “But not here.”

Steve startled when a large metal arm prodded him from behind. He whipped around, and might have gone for his shield again if Tony hadn’t inserted a large clawed foot between Steve and his wayward creation.

“This is DUM-E,” Tony said with a sigh. “A few decades ago, I came up with the integration spell which allowed him, as a metal sprite, to inhabit and grow within this helper-bot I made. DUM-E is what I call a sprite-bot. He’s curious and as the name suggests, not too bright.”

DUM-E’s singular arm sank down with a sad beep.

“Oh, don’t pretend. As if you care about that,” Tony grumbled.

DUM-E’s camera at the end of the arm tilted up, looking at Tony, while letting out yet another despondent beep.

Tony huffed, nudging DUM-E’s chassis with his nose. “You’re such a faker.”

DUM-E perked up and let out a thrill of happy notes, a total 180 degrees from his previous sad noises. He nudged Tony back on the nose with his arm several times over, causing Tony to flinch back in surprise.

Steve let out a soft, choked laugh, almost more like a cough, surprising Tony and DUM-E into looking at him. They tilted their heads at him in confusion, and it must have been a particularly funny sight, because it resulted in a loud, amused laugh this time, not even close to suppressed.

“Like a pair of confused puppies,” he eventually managed to say. “A dragon and a robot, and they look like _puppies_.”

“I think I’m offended. Again,” Tony said. “Why are you so offensive, Captain Knight?”

“Captain Knight!” Steve said, before laughing again, leaning on a table for support.

Below JARVIS’ glowing sphere, a wisp of smoke appeared before solidifying to form an image of Tony and DUM-E, both with their heads tilted. It captured all the fine details of Tony’s raised scaly brows, bright blue eyes wide with puzzlement, and DUM-E’s gleaming camera lens giving the impression of round-eyed confusion.

“I would say it is less offensive and more accurate,” JARVIS suggested.

Steve collapsed into a human-sized chair, clutching at his stomach, as he let out another peal of laughter.

Tony felt, at once, embarrassed and amused. His pride didn’t like being the cause of so much laughter, but at the same time, there was something rather charming about seeing such a handsome figure falling to pieces and red-faced with laughter. It made Steve seemed less like an untouchable perfect knight and more like a hysterical normal man. Who was perhaps touched in the head, rather than untouchable.

After a while, Steve’s laughter subsided, and he sank back in the chair, shaking his head at his own antics.

“I’m sorry, that was…” he trailed off. “Probably much needed. And a much larger reaction than the situation warranted.”

DUM-E was giving Steve a wide berth, beeping occasionally in concern. Tony lowered his head to give Steve a closer look, which got him a rueful smile.

“Are you feeling better now?” Tony asked, a touch wryly.

“Yes, I am. It’s been a long time since I’ve laughed like that.” Then, Steve added, a little quietly. “Since I’ve laughed at all.”

His eyes were downcast, a flash of sadness that seemed to hollow out his already sharply-cut features. Unexpectedly, Tony felt sincere concern for this knight he barely knew. There was something about deep, stoic sadness on the heels of such unrestrained laughter that worried Tony. Someone like this shouldn’t be so sad and resigned. He should always be laughing, always be made to smile the way he did when he had looked at Tony and DUM-E.

The line of thought discomfited Tony. He tried to cover it up with a nonchalant shrug, which wasn’t easy for a dragon to pull off. With a loud thump, he lay down on his side. “I suppose you must be getting tired soon. You can lie on that little cot over there. JARVIS can give you some privacy if you want.”

Steve turned to look at the wide bed, complete with a thick duvet and fluffy pillows, pushed up against the side of the cavern underneath an alcove. JARVIS obligingly created an almost solid wall of pale mist between the bed and the cavern, lowering it slowly and then lifting it again in demonstration to Steve.  

“Incredible,” Steve murmured.

“You’ll make JARVIS blush,” Tony said.

“It’s convenient that you have a human-sized bed here. Along with human-sized chairs and tables too,” Steve commented on, a little too nonchalant for Tony’s liking.

“I have guests sometimes. Whether I want them or not,” Tony said, giving Steve a pointed look.

Then he stretched his long neck so he could nose at his own side, worrying at a little itching ache near his shoulder and gnawing a little at a dented scale.

“Do you need help scratching an itch?” Steve offered lightly.

“Don’t be ridiculous; what could your human hands do to my hide?” Tony paused. “Although, maybe your shield could help. It was what dented my scale in the first place.”

Steve stood up, a frown clear in his voice, even though Tony hadn’t looked around. “Did I injure you earlier?”

Tony huffed. “Please, it would take more than an upstart knight to injure the great Iron Dragon. Your shield just dented one of my scales, and it’s irritating me, so I want it off. I’m a little surprised; nothing the previous knights wielded has ever dented my scales.”

“Shouldn’t you wait until a new scale grows out before peeling off the old one?” Steve asked.

“That would require Sir to be patient and go with the least destructive method available to him,” JARVIS piped up.

“No one asked your opinion, puddles.”

Steve unstrapped his shield and leaned it against the table. “I would like to hear JARVIS’ opinions.”

“Glad to be appreciated by someone here, Knight Rogers.”

“Please, call me Steve.”

Tony stopped worrying at his scale and turned a narrow glare at Steve. “I’m not letting you stay around here if you’re going to turn my sprite-bots against me.”

Steve gave Tony a surprised stare, before smiling. “I wouldn’t dare do such a thing, if it were even possible.”

Tony stared down his long snout at Steve and then gave a disdainful sniff. “You’re right, it’s not possible. Just remember that,” Tony said, before laying his head down on his forelegs.

“I will,” Steve said softly.

# # # # # #

Steve took up Tony’s implicit invite to stay on for a while. He made no effort to leave over the next couple days, happy to explore the mountains, and was endlessly in awe of and intrigued by the wonders he found in Tony’s inventions. At the end of the first day, Steve sent a missive back to S.H.I.E.L.D., asking for an open-ended leave of absence. When Tony asked about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s unusual leniency, all Steve would say was that they owed him a favor and he was calling it in for a break. Then, Steve asked tentatively if it was alright for him to spend his break there, which caused Tony to roll his eyes and tell Steve he could stay if he wanted to, it was a big cavern.

And that was that.

Since he had brought nothing but his shield and the clothes on his back, Tony offered some clothing he had lying around. Which led to Steve making yet another comment about the convenience but total coincidence of having human-sized clothing around, which Tony ignored.

The clothing Tony had on hand was a size too small for Steve. The light T-shirt stretched tightly over Steve’s broad shoulders, clung desperately to his large biceps. The seams of the threadbare sweatpants were barely holding on around his muscular thighs, seeming as though they would give way every time Steve stood or sat or did anything at all, really.

Tony found the sight more distracting than he expected. He hadn’t thought that way about any other living being for some time now, not since Afghanistan. But with Steve around all the time, wearing his clothes with a complete lack of self-consciousness, doing sit-ups and push-ups around the place, something started niggling at the back of his mind.

Something that whispered, as he looked at Steve, ‘ _A treasure for my hoard._ ’  

He tamped down viciously on the thought.

In an effort to stay distracted, Tony had started nosing around Steve’s light scalemail. It was pretty good armor, obviously S.H.I.E.L.D.’s work, with fine, enchanted, interlinked chains and overlapping metal scales that kept it light and impenetrable to bullets and sword strikes. But not to the teeth of a large dragon. Tony had shaken his head at Steve’s lack of protection. The scalemail was good and molded to Steve’s body like it was second skin.

But it could be better.

Steve allowed JARVIS to measure him, glowing motes of blue light flitting about him before settling on his frame like a glittery outfit. He watched with avid fascination as JARVIS and Tony traded off comments on measurements and material, on stress tests and textures. He chimed in with feedback of his own, which Tony took into consideration and argued against, sometimes for the sake of argument.

Tony found himself distracted by Steve’s honest delight and fascination as he watched BUTTERFINGERS, another metal sprite that manifested in the fabrication dome, hard at work to create the new uniform. BUTTERFINGERS’ fine metallic curved wands clicked and clacked as they weaved metal and fabrics together. Through a seamless choreography of magic and mechanical technology under JARVIS’ instructions, BUTTERFINGERS fabricated a new blue and white scalemail in the same style as Steve’s old uniform.

Under Tony’s direction, JARVIS started up a little laser sprite-bot that scuttled over the armor, painstakingly etching little runes onto every metal chainlink and scale. It was tedious work that Tony and JARVIS had to oversee, because magic was volatile and the runes needed custom tweaking every step of the way.

“It’s beautiful,” Steve breathed, running a hand over the intricate armor once they were done etching, barely able to feel the fine runes under his fingertips.

“And it’s not finished yet,” Tony said.

Steve looked on in surprise as Tony picked up the scalemail gently between his teeth and took it outside. He scaled his way to the top of the mountain, unsurprised when Steve kept up behind him, clambering up the rocks nimbly. On an impulse, Tony swept his long tail down and caught Steve on his side.

Ever quick on his feet, Steve grabbed hold of his tail. Tony pulled his tail and the added weight of Steve up to his back.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked, catching on.

Tony let out a huff of irritation, which Steve correctly took as assent. He transferred his hold from Tony’s tail to the high ridge that ran down Tony’s spine. He settled himself with his legs across Tony’s back, within a dip in the ridge, and held on tight. Feeling Steve’s tight grip of his thighs and arms, Tony let out a draconic rumble and grinned.

It was the only warning Steve got.

Tony let go of the side of the sheer mountain and fell. He pulled in his wings tightly and flipped over so that he was arrowing down towards the forest, a slight spin to his sharp descent. The air blasted across his body at the speed they were going, the thin membranes that were his secondary eyelids coming down to protect his eyes. The sky was a tilted splash of blue against his back, and the stunning reds and yellow of the fall leaves stretched below him.

He heard a whoop of pure exhilaration from his back. If Tony didn’t have the armor in his mouth, he would have had something to say about Steve’s adrenaline junkie ways. Instead, he snapped his wings out and cupped the air, slowing his fall as he started arching his neck upwards again. He turned his dive into a gradual ascending arc, flapping his wings strongly to gain altitude.

When he was above the mountains, he stayed in the air for the moment, overlooking the rocky mountains with the clinging moss and strong mountain trees, mostly bare in autumn with a few bright evergreens hanging on to the harsh scraggly rock face. The mountain stood tall over the forest, a colourful warm jewel that bracketed the road back towards the township and further away, to the busy city of Ma’libu.

Where the fall only got whoops of joy from Steve, the view before them earned a sharply indrawn breath.

“This is amazing,” Steve said, holding on tighter. “Flying has to be the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced.”

Something warmed inside Tony’s belly at the thought that he was able to give this to Steve. After a few more minutes of flapping lazily in the air, he finally descended lightly on the top of the mountain. 

Steve slipped off Tony’s back, sliding down his scaly side easily. He paused, resting a hand on Tony’s shoulder until Tony turned to look at him.

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve said, eyes warmed, a deep blue that reflected the sky around them.

Tony squirmed and shrugged, using the armor in his mouth as an excuse not to say anything back. While Tony had done it on an impulse, taking someone on his back required a measure of trust that was impossible to describe, and he thought Steve was aware of the momentous decision.  

Under the setting sun, on a wide slab of rock, Tony laid down the flexible suit of armor. When Steve stepped forward, he nudged Steve back with his tail and shot him a look. Steve sighed and stood behind Tony’s shoulder.

Crouching low, Tony breathed white-hot fire over the armor, keeping up a sustained flame until the small blaze ended with a low growl.

The armor glowed white with heat for long minutes, and Tony had to nudge Steve back several times again with his left wing when Steve tried to come forward for a better look.

“I’m not going to touch it,” Steve complained. “I know it’s too hot at the moment.”

“I can’t be too sure around someone like you with barely any survival instincts.”

That earned him an impressive eye-roll.

Once the armor cooled down, which Tony checked by pressing a flicking tongue out onto it, he allowed Steve to pick it up.

The blue and white suit gleamed in the low sunlight. It was soft, draping silkily over Steve’s hands as he examined it.

Steve’s eyes were bright with pleasure and admiration. “I’ve never seen anything so fine, yet durable, in my life.”

“Made of a metal of my creation, etched with my magic, cured by dragon’s breath. You will find nothing better than this in the world,” Tony said with shameless pride. “Certainly decades ahead of what S.H.I.E.L.D. issued to you.”

Steve shot him a sideways smile. “But what if I want to wear what S.H.I.E.L.D. gave me. For nostalgia’s sake.”

Tony reared back in offence. “That is the most insulting thing you have said to me so far. I will destroy that old uniform right now.”

“I have hidden it away,” Steve said, although he had not; Tony knew because he had seen it carelessly draped over a chair. Steve was a bit of a slob.

Tony played along anyway. “Then you can return my fine work to me and I’ll give it to someone else who will better appreciate it. You can keep wearing S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inferior armor.”

“No, this is a gift, and you don’t take back gifts, that would be rude,” Steve said, draping his new armor over one shoulder and inching back.

“I’m a dragon; I don’t care about being rude,” Tony said.

Steve took off at a run, because he was a shameless cheat. “It’s mine now, you can’t have it!”

Tony rampaged after him as they careened down the mountain, with Steve calling back taunts and Tony roaring meaningless threats.

That had been a good day.

# # # # # #

There were many good days with Steve around.

# # # # # #

Steve seemed ever curious about technology and magic, constantly amazed at how well Tony integrated the two of them. There was something so sincere about Steve’s reaction that made Tony preen at all the wonderment over his work.

It was flattering, but also a little strange. Steve seemed to know the basics of magic, the kind of basics that was not only somewhat outdated, but was mostly unknown, because unless someone intended to go into the field of magic usage, they took all of the results for granted nowadays. It wasn’t like in the bad old days when you had to have some modicum of knowledge about magic to actually use the spells and runes that were set up by professional mages. Nowadays, the amalgamation of magic and technology meant that most spells were intrinsically bound to technology and you only needed to press a button to get it working.

It was only a few reclusive sects and small communities that stuck almost entirely to magic. Just like how there were a few places that used only technology. But the rest of the world had mostly accepted the combination of magic and technology.

Tony’s work in his lair was often more advanced than what most of the world could achieve. And Steve seemed to recognize that.

“I’ve never seen anyone work with elemental sprites like you do,” Steve said tentatively, one day. “I thought, most people bargained with sprites for use of their services.”

“Yes?” Tony said, looking up from his meal.

Steve was seated at a work bench, having demolished two plates of fried rice that ORION, Tony’s food processing bot, had produced. Tony was working his way through two humongous medium-rare steaks. He wasn’t a savage; he liked his meat cooked.

With the amount they both ate daily, Tony only managed to stay off anyone’s radar by having JARVIS coordinate a complex network of fake identities that were used to purchase groceries and necessities. Those goods were then sent to various drop-off points where their wind sprites collected the items and brought them all to the secret cave hideout, ensuring that they couldn’t be tracked down.

“But that’s not what you do here,” Steve pointed out, gesturing with a spoon. “People use magical phrases to get the attention of sprites before offering them something for their services. You never need to do that.”

Tony swallowed his bite of steak and considered. “I do it, but not regularly. My sprites and I have a more long-term arrangement.”

“I’ve only seen no negotiations when long-term compulsion spells are used on sprites,” Steve said in a neutral tone.

“That’s not what I do,” Tony said sharply, the spines on his back flattening backwards.

“I know that,” Steve said quietly, with surprising certainty. “You wouldn’t, and it couldn’t be more obvious that your sprites are here willingly and happily. I’m just explaining what I know.”

Tony took a deep breath, tried to relax again, but his tail was still swishing back and forth with leftover agitation. “The sprites know about me through word of mouth, from other sprites talking about what I do. I would say ninety percent of sprites have no interest in what I do, but there’s the ten percent who want to do something different, who want to use technology too, and they come looking. I use runes to anchor the elemental magic in technology and sometimes, I build a connection to JARVIS so he can oversee them and give them instructions. The sprites choose to stay with me and choose their preferred tasks.”

“So… they choose what they want to do with you?” Steve asked.

“I let them try it out. In some cases, they grow into the role. Sometimes they define their own role, like the cleaner bots who started out sorting my toolboxes and then expanded to cleaning everything. DUM-E was the first sprite-bot amalgamation that I made when I was 16, even before JARVIS. He was supposed to be my outer perimeter security system, embedded in a metal ring, a very important first role. But he didn’t like it, so I put him in a metal security box as an alarm system and he hated that. He ended up happiest as a helper arm on wheels.”

Steve considered this as he watched DUM-E attempt to sort some screws, which seemed to involve picking them up from the table and throwing them willy-nilly into a small box on the table. Once all the screws were thrown into the box, DUM-E let out a chirp of delight, flung his arm in the air which proceeded to knock the box of screws over.

“Well… maybe less a helper arm, more just an arm. A destructive arm,” Tony sighed. He said louder towards DUM-E, “You’re a disaster. Please stop trying to tidy the bench.”

DUM-E ignored Tony as he intently stirred the screws on the table while beeping in concentration.

“You’re amazing,” Steve said.

Tony turned to look at him in surprise, confused at the sudden compliment. From Steve’s soft smile and warm blue eyes, he was being sincere, which made even less sense.

“Well, yes, I know I am. But why specifically?” Tony asked tentatively, rubbing the side of his wing against his snout in embarrassment.

“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Steve said with a more teasing grin.

Tony grumbled, “You can’t just pay me compliments and then refuse to elaborate. I deserve all the detailed accolades.”

“Accolades for pouting dragons, I’ll try to look up some poetry on that,” Steve said, clasping his hands and seemingly earnest.

Tony rolled his eyes. “I’m not pouting.”

Steve came up and patted him on his lower jaw. “Sure you’re not.”

Tony turned his head away, checking briefly that his lower lip wasn’t jutting out or anything.

“Do you need a mirror to be sure?” Steve asked in an innocent tone.

Annoyed that Steve had made him check and that he had been caught doing so, Tony whipped his head around and huffed smoke into Steve’s face. But Steve snapped his shield up in front of his face and the smoke just billowed around it. Steve pushed the shield forward and bopped it against Tony’s nose.

“Big scary dragon, without the fire, smoke and bellows, what lies beneath?” Steve said from behind the shield, with obvious amusement.

“Genius, billionaire, philanthropist, playboy,” Tony said.

Steve waved the smoke away and lowered his shield with a frown. “You’re a dragon, not a billionaire, philanthropist, playboy.”

“You haven’t seen my treasure hoard yet, otherwise you would know I’m very much a billionaire. I like to help princesses in need, and the other dragons like me very much,” Tony said, checking off each item on his claws.

“I’m sure all the other dragons can feel your charm all the way from inside your dark dragon’s lair,” Steve said dryly. “We’ll be getting dragon callers any day now.”

“You say that, but you’ll be beating them off with that shield of yours when they flock here,” Tony said with a loud sniff.

Steve said, “I am a knight; I guess I can protect the damsel in distress too.”

Tony let out a snort of outrage. “I’m not the damsel in distress in this situation.”

“No, you’re the _dragon_ in distress,” Steve said, completely seriously.

“You’re the worst knight,” Tony declared.

“You have worst and best mixed up,” Steve told him earnestly.

“The worst _everything_.”

# # # # # #

Some days, Steve’s questions weren’t so easy to answer.

“What is it?”

Tony was reading news feeds that JARVIS was projecting against a cloud of mist, a collation of data JARVIS had gathered from various travelling sprites and from newsfeeds on the internet. Tony might be a little more distracted these days, a little more internally-focussed than usual, but he knew there were still objectives he had to fulfil. Holing up in his lair might make the world outside seem far removed, but regardless of his preferences, he couldn’t ignore it forever.

He had to figure out the truth behind Afghanistan. He had to solve it, so it couldn’t happen again.

His bouts of revenge might have slaked his anger momentarily, but he hadn’t gotten to the root cause of the issue.

“What is what?” Tony asked Steve in return, distracted as he tried to keep abreast with the business news, with decisions major weapons companies were making to see if he could spot a plot.

“The glowing thing in your chest,” Steve said. “I stopped asking before, because it made you uncomfortable. And I won’t ask again if you tell me not to, but I’m a little worried. At least tell me that it doesn’t hurt you. That’s all I ask.”

Tony turned away from his news feeds to look at Steve, who was seated on the couch. It had become his couch now, where he usually sat. He had an open, hand-bound book on his lap, with thick blank parchment that he now used as a sketchpad. Tony had given it to him when he found out that Steve drew as a hobby. Steve would probably be horrified if he knew how much the book cost, it being a custom-made magically neutral book that Tony had bought to write spells in.

Tony contemplated Steve’s face, open and honest, a slight frown indicating his worry that he had overstepped.

The thing was… Tony knew that Steve had secrets of his own. He was smart and learned a lot in a very short amount of time, but he also behaved like there was a lot for him to learn. He examined modern technology like the coffee machine and the datapad like he wasn’t sure of them, although he took to them quickly after instruction from JARVIS. He wasn’t completely sure of the latest events that had occurred in the world. Tony would think nothing of it, if Steve behaved like someone who didn’t care about world news, except Steve blatantly did care. He was interested in the news, had loud opinions about many events across the world, but seemed unsure about matters that had happened just six months ago.

Tony wondered if Steve was part of some insular cult in the past, his most paranoid mind coming up with ideas about a spy from a technology-hating religion. There were some of those around.

But he couldn’t see that of Steve. And there were certainly subtler spies they could have sent. Steve just wasn’t very good at subterfuge.

As demonstrated by his straightforward approach to the arc reactor.

“It’s called an arc reactor,” Tony said suddenly, surprised by his own honesty, and then thinking, what the hell, this was Steve. He could share this much with Steve. “I made it. I made it in a cave in Afghanistan, after my heart was badly damaged when some assholes captured me.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Are you, are you okay? Is your heart—”

Tony interrupted gently, lowering his head so that he was closer to eye level with Steve. “Shrapnel from an explosive entered my chest and heart. A very good shamanic doctor operated on me in a cave in the middle of a desert and kept me alive with nothing more than medical ingenuity and a car battery spelled clean to keep me clear of infection. For a more permanent solution, I made this arc reactor to help keep my heart beating. I need it to survive.”

Steve looked aghast. He put his book aside and got off the couch. Reaching up, he touched Tony gently on the snout.

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Steve said, quiet. “Your captors?”

“They’re dead now,” Tony said, eyes slitted. He watched Steve for a reaction.

Steve met his reptilian gaze and only nodded with what looked to be satisfaction. “I’m glad you’re out of there now.”

Tony relaxed, even though he knew he shouldn’t have cared about potential censure from Steve. But somehow, he did.

He sighed, admitting quietly, “Yinsen, the shaman doctor, he died as well. He tried to buy me time and paid with his life.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said quietly, pressing his forehead against the side of Tony’s large scaly cheek. “I’m very sorry to hear that. He sounds like a good man.”

“The very best of them,” Tony rumbled.

“I know what it’s like to lose people too,” Steve said, barely more than a whisper.

Tony curled his wing up over Steve, brushing the leathery underside against wide shoulders, as if he could protect Steve from that internal pain. 

After a moment of shared silence, Steve asked, “Does it hurt you? The arc reactor?”

“Not anymore,” Tony said.

“I’m glad. Thank you for telling me about this.”

Steve’s sincerity was almost too much to take. Tony nudged the side of his face against Steve’s body, a rough and not terribly informative gesture. But Steve seemed to take it in kind and rubbed roughly against the side of Tony’s snout with his hands. Huffing, Tony turned back to his news feeds.

Why did Steve, a knight who should hate dragons, care so much about a dragon he had originally come to vanquish?

And maybe that’s why Tony was fascinated by Steve. He could never resist a puzzle. And Steve was a puzzle wrapped up in a handsome, funny, noble and competent package. In all of Tony’s life, he had never encountered a treasure as irresistible as this one.

# # # # # #

Tony knew from the start that it wasn’t a well-kept secret, but he didn’t expect to be found out so soon.

It was Pepper’s fault, really. Everything was usually Pepper’s fault.

She had come to talk to him about what she had found out at the company, and how there was someone called Coulson leaving her messages and wanting to meet up to discuss the company's accounts, but she wasn't sure if he even worked in Stark Industries so she wasn't returning his messages. Tony wondered if he should look into this Coulson person, except having just one name wasn't really enough to investigate anything. Pepper also went over how Obadiah Stane was running things while Tony was presumed dead. Pepper said that Obie seemed very stressed and was still trying to keep the search efforts for Tony going. At the same time, she didn’t like Obie, didn’t like how ruthless and harsh he seemed, even though Tony had assured her that Obie was someone who only dropped his business persona around people he knew well. Tony had felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t told Obie yet that he was still alive, but the less people knew, the better. And he knew Obie wouldn’t let him stay hidden here if Obie knew the truth.

Then, Pepper had complained that she was tired of craning her neck up at him all the time, and had forgotten how he really looked like.

So Tony had rolled his eyes, and did what was necessary to change his shape.

She had spent twenty minutes talking about some accounting hijinks she suspected and how she was going to uncover it. Tony was distracted for much of the time, getting used to being so _small_ again.

“Just… be careful,” Tony said, getting used to the shape of his mouth and thinking that his voice sounded so teeny.

Pepper nodded. “I will, don’t worry. I’m not the reckless one in this friendship.”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen you at a shoe sale, buying out two dozen pairs of shoes. That was more reckless than anything I’ve ever done.”

“You tell yourself that.” Pepper paused significantly. “Where is that strapping knight that you seem to have taken in? I don’t think you really get the concept of knights versus dragons here.”

“I like bucking the trend,” Tony said with a disdainful sniff.

“And you like a pretty face too.”

While he was still spluttering, she leaned forward and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Take care of yourself, Tony,” she said, before turning away.

Tony kept an eye on her as she made her way out of the forest.

Later that afternoon, Tony was lying on the mountain peak, staying out of the lair until it was cleaned up. This time, DUM-E hadn’t just hit the fire extinguisher for no good reason. He had set off the fire suppression spells through a cascade of magic that Tony still hadn’t worked out yet. Now DUM-E was wearing the dunce cap as he helped — probably caused more problems actually — the cleaning sprite-bots with wiping off every surface.

Tony grumbled to himself as he laid there, letting the warm sun soak into his hide and wash away his irritation.

“You know, it was the brown eyes that threw me off at first.”

Tony opened his blue eyes to meet Steve’s steady gaze. He had heard Steve trekking up the mountain the long way round, but had chosen to ignore him until he was addressed. Steve’s hair was slightly damp from exertion, so he must have been on a jog before he decided to head up the mountain. Tony had noted, like all kinds of things he noted about Steve, that it took quite a lot to cause Steve to break out in sweat.

“What brown eyes?” Tony asked laconically.

Steve ignored that. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was just on a run, trying to map out the forest better. I heard Pepper’s voice first, and then another person’s voice that I didn’t immediately recognize.”

Oh shit.

Tony’s eyes widened, and Steve smiled, recognizing the tell.

“Except the voice did sound familiar. It took me awhile to place without the growl and rumble. Then when I had a look, I saw a man talking to Pepper. That didn’t really surprise me, because I’ve had my suspicions for a while. But the brown eyes. That was what surprised me. I didn’t expect the brown eyes.”

Steve was looking closely at Tony’s eyes now, each orb as big as Steve’s head. He was smiling, so at least he wasn’t upset at the subterfuge so far.

“You’re too smart for your own good,” Tony said.

Steve looked sincerely pleased. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“So why the difference in eye color, do you think?” Tony asked, curious to hear what Steve would say.

Steve didn’t even hesitate, which meant he must have been thinking on this for awhile before he came up to talk to Tony.

“Your blue eyes are the same shade as the arc reactor. I’m guessing it’s magic-related, something about the magic makes your eyes blue. Which means without the magic, your eyes are brown. Which also means…” Steve paused, looking at Tony closely. “…you’re not actually a dragon.”

Tony huffed out a smoky breath, and finally got up from his lazy sprawl. He yawned, showing all his long teeth, reminding Steve of his shape, regardless of his origin.

Steve didn’t look particularly worried.

Tony sighed. Then with careful claws, he pressed against the sides of his arc reactor and turned. Steve actually stepped forward, face shocked, looking like he was going to try to stop Tony. But Tony only shook his head at him. He could feel the catches on the arc reactor deep in his chest release, and Tony pulled the arc reactor out.

The world dissolved around Tony, falling to pieces as Tony’s sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, _everything_ warped. The air suddenly felt too warm around Tony, like he had fire in his lungs and molten lava in his blood. Everything itched and pulsed and stretched and compressed. He wanted to roar, to gnash his sharp teeth, to dig his claws into the earth, except all that expelled from his parted mouth was a soft gasp and then blunt fingernails dug into fleshy palms…

And he was human again.

Tony opened his eyes. It felt strange not to have two eyelids for each eye flicking open. The world seemed brighter, colours more vivid, but at the same time, everything felt muted. He couldn’t _smell_ Steve anymore, not that signature earthy male smell, layered with strong metal, new leather, Tony’s smoky magic on his skin from living together. Tony couldn’t taste the air, couldn’t taste the world with a flick of his tongue. It felt strange to stand on two feet, nothing more, no tail for balance, no wings to catch the draft.

He sighed again, and shrugged his shoulders, feeling his body settle into his human skin. It was at once limiting and freeing. He felt less, but whole again.

Around the circular socket in his very human chest was a ring of small gold scales that the lip of his arc reactor had hidden. Taking a deep breath, Tony scratched at the edge of the gold scales until they started to lift on one side. Tony hooked a finger under the edge and pulled off the ring of gold scales in one complete ringed piece.

“I probably shouldn’t stay in dragon shape for such a long stretch of time,” Tony mused, hanging his ring of gold scales from his elbow as he shifted the arc reactor in his hands.

The arc reactor had shrunk down once removed from his body, as part of the spell imbued into the arc reactor and the scales. Now, the arc reactor was just the right size for the human body. He placed it against his chest and pushed it into its socket, turning until he heard a click.

“No imminent heart attack,” Tony said, giving his chest a pat. “Hmm, everything seems in order. Sometimes it’s hard to tell since it’s a bit of a rush and everything feels strange what with turning from a cold-blooded giant reptile to a warm-blooded small human. Small in comparison to dragons, I mean.”

“Um.”

Tony looked up, gazing upon Steve with his human eyes for the first time. Steve was just as much of a marvel to human eyes, with his flaxen gold hair, his Romanesque nose and parted soft lips. That jawline and cheekbones did seem even more stunningly angular and symmetrical from the human perspective, instead of from a few meters above.

And with Tony back to human height, he could appreciate that Steve really was a very well-built man. He was tall, with very broad shoulders that tapered to a trim waist. Those thighs looked particularly impressive in Tony’s overly small sweatpants.

Finishing his admiration of Steve’s everything, Tony looked back up to see that Steve was staring wide-eyed at Tony’s everything as well. Tony looked down, and realized that of course, he was naked.

He didn’t feel a particular need to hurry and cover up. After all, he was a rather lovely human specimen, which was how he transformed into a particularly impressive dragon. He had a good base to start with.

“Naturally, clothes don’t come with the transformation,” Tony said with a shrug. When Steve continued to stare at him, wide-eyed, Tony decided to give him some time to acclimatize to the view.

He held his hands out before him, clenching and unclenching them and relishing in the feel of his human musculature pumping and working again. He looked at his warm pink skin under the bright noon sunlight, moved his fingers and arms until he caught sight of the faint hint of red and gold scales rippling beneath his skin, moving with his muscles. The dragon was part of him now. It wasn’t something that disappeared for good the moment he took on human shape again.

“You’re, uh, very naked.”

When Tony looked up again, Steve was staring fixedly over Tony’s shoulders, even though his eyes couldn’t seem to help flicking occasionally towards Tony’s face or his chest, before snapping back up again.

“Yes, as I established earlier about the clothes,” Tony said. “And you were right about the eyes by the way. It’s the arc reactor and the dragon’s magic. Yinsen said that the eyes are the window to our souls, and my soul has been touched too deeply by the arc reactor and the dragon’s magic not to manifest a difference when I shift into my dragon form.”

Tony felt a strange melancholy at the mention of Yinsen’s name. It was rare that he got to talk about Yinsen like this, reminiscing about his theories instead of his sacrifices.

“Maybe we should talk about this back in your lair?” Steve suggested tentatively. “Where there are clothes?”

Tony’s eyes widened. “Oh, damnit!”

Steve startled and looked back at him in alarm. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to make that hike back down in my human form,” Tony said. “I knew I should have thought about that before I shifted back. That’s a lot of hiking, and I don’t know how you do it without tiring.”

That startled a laugh out of Steve, which always made Tony feel inexplicably proud.

“Why don’t you just change back into a dragon for your flight back down?”

“Good idea,” Tony said, working his arc reactor back out of its socket. No way was he climbing back down bare assed naked. He had delicate skin as a human, okay?

# # # # # #

The lair was thankfully cleaned up by the time they were both back in it, and in Tony’s case, transformed back to human and appropriately dressed. Tony felt unused to clothing after so long without it, so he settled for a tanktop and loose pajamas pants.

The sprite-bots were exuberant to see Tony in his human shape, DUM-E in particular spinning around Tony and pressing up for pats, his dunce cap at a jaunty angle.

“I see you have decided to stop hiding the obvious from Steve. Well done, Sir,” JARVIS said.

“I didn’t have much choice, what with Steve figuring things out on his own,” Tony admitted.

He turned and noticed that Steve couldn’t stop staring at him, at his face, seemingly tracing over his features, over his skin, like he couldn’t get enough of the human flesh with the occasional hint of scales underneath.

“Here,” Tony said, holding out an arm. “You can come have a look. I know the scales look weird.”

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t stare, that was—”

Tony would have huffed out smoky air if he was still in dragon shape. He had never seen Steve so flustered before, not the knight who took everything in stride, including charging dragons and unexpected flights on a dragon’s back.

Tony slouched down onto the couch, still holding out his arm. “Seriously, I don’t mind. Come on. I know I’m a good looking man, with a good looking body. It’s natural you can’t get enough of this.”

The joke broke Steve’s embarrassment, and he smiled.

“I can’t get enough of your ego, that’s for sure,” Steve said, making his way to the couch and settling down next to Tony.

Tony presented his arm to Steve with an airy wave, and Steve took it with faux-gravity. Once he held Tony’s arm though, he dropped all playful pretences. He cradled it gently, his soft touch sending a shiver down Tony’s all-too-human back. Steve turned Tony’s arm this way and that, tracing the shimmer of red and gold scales just beneath his skin. The scales didn’t show up all the time, and they weren’t obvious on every inch of his skin. They seemed most obvious where his skin was thinnest, at his wrists and elbows, along the backs of his hands, where his muscles tightened.

It looked like Tony had a layer of scales pressing up beneath his human skin, but Tony knew it was entirely visual, like a mirage. This was just the way the remaining traces of shapeshifting magic manifested in him now. If his skin were cut, there would be nothing beneath but human flesh and blood. Tony knew that with certainty, because he had tested it once.

What could he say, he was a scientist at heart and he had to find out after he first saw the traces of the scales.

“So you’re a kind of dragon shapeshifter?” Steve asked, looking up to meet Tony’s brown, human eyes.

Tony shook his head. “It’s not a thing, if that’s what you’re wondering. There’s no such thing as natural dragon shapeshifters. But it was an ability that Yinsen had always theorized could be made possible with the right spell. Being a shaman as well as a medical doctor, he had written papers on how it would be possible for someone make themselves into a shapeshifter, to shift into another form, even something as large as a dragon. As long as you had a large enough power source.”

Steve blinked and looked down to Tony’s chest, where the arc reactor set right in the center. “The arc reactor. It’s not magical, but it can be used to fuel magic.”

“You got that right,” Tony said, wondering if Steve realized he was tracing Tony’s veins on his arm idly now. He suppressed a shiver and continued his explanation. “You sound like you know a little about the arc reactor now. Did you do some reading on it?”

Steve looked chagrined. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to poke my nose into it.”

“No, please, I’m a scientist. We refine nosiness as a profession.”

That got him a smile. “I asked JARVIS what an arc reactor was when you told me about it the other day. JARVIS showed me the Stark Industries’ page on the arc reactor, and how it was this gigantic power source that was providing electricity to one of the Stark Industries’ buildings here in Ma’libu. Howard wanted to revolutionize the energy industry, but the arc reactor was too big and wasn’t cost effective. So he had to abandon that project. It’s mostly just for show now. There wasn’t any mention of a small version of the arc reactor.”

Howard… that was surprisingly familiar of Steve. But maybe he was just using what he read.

Tony tapped the arc reactor in his chest. “I miniaturized it in the cave. Not this one specifically, this is the spiffed up version built with proper tools, not when I had to do a hell lot of blacksmithing just to make the tools to make the original miniaturized version. That it’s been miniaturized isn’t public knowledge.”

“That sounds amazing,” Steve admitted, a little overawed.

Tony shrugged. “So I guess you know who I am as well? How long have you known?”

He knew he sounded suspicious even as he tried to tamp down on it.

“Not immediately,” Steve said, speaking carefully, as if he could sense this was a dangerous subject. “When you told me about the arc reactor in your chest, and after I read the article JARVIS showed me, I thought it meant you were just someone who worked at Stark Industries, who had access to the arc reactor schematics. I only guessed you were Anthony Stark after I saw you in the forest talking to Pepper today. I’ve seen pictures of you before.”

He sounded abashed at seeing those pictures, as if it were somehow his fault for ever seeing the million-and-one photos of Tony plastered all over the newspapers and internet ever since he was a baby.

Tony frowned. “Wait a minute, so you’ve always thought I was a human who could shapeshift into a dragon?”

“No, not really.” Steve shrugged, his hand resting lightly on Tony’s, probably not even noticing that they were almost holding hands at this point. “I just knew you most definitely had a human form as well.”

“How so?” Tony said, baffled.

“All the chairs and tables and the bed were at human height. You had human-sized clothes,” Steve said with a raised eyebrow, like it should be obvious how he had figured it out.

“Yes, but I can have guests. And I have dragon-sized platforms for work too.”

“You also have all kinds of technology and scientific experiments at human size. You have a coffee machine for humans. It would make sense if you had a human assistant, but I haven’t seen anyone else in days. And more importantly, you have DUM-E.”

“DUM-E? How does he prove anything?” Now Tony was just confused, although that could also be due to Steve’s warm hand against his. It was distracting. He hadn’t ever just sat anywhere almost holding hands with someone else.

Steve gave him a look. “DUM-E is human-sized and you treat him like an old friend, almost like your kid even. You wouldn’t have made him that size if you didn’t interact with him a lot as a human.”

Tony thought about it for a few seconds and then smiled. “Yeah, okay. You win, Knight Detective.”

“That’s Captain Detective, thank you,” Steve said with a grin.

“Sure, sure,” Tony said with an extravagant eye-roll. “Alright, so you caught me. I’m that Tony Stark. And sometimes I turn into a dragon.”

Steve shook his head. “You make it sounds so casual, like everyone can turn into a dragon. How did this happen? Why a dragon?”

Tony sighed and gathered his composure. There was something comforting about having his hand cradled in Steve’s while he went over this particularly raw period of his life. “It was in Afghanistan. I told you about how Yinsen saved my life, and that I built the miniaturized arc reactor to keep my heart going, about his theory on shapeshifting.”

Tony suddenly got up, sad to pull his hand away from Steve but wanting to show him. He pulled out his box of scraps from under the table, the one in which he had hid a few indiscreet items all that time ago when Steve had first come into the cave.

Tony flicked off the cloth and fished out the old arc reactor, the very first that he had built in the caves, that Pepper had put into a little glass box with its own little inscription that said, “PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART.”

Tony placed it on the corner of his workbench, tapping it lightly. “That’s the first model that I built in the cave. It doesn’t have as much storing power and can only generate enough energy for about twenty minutes of dragon shapeshifting, but it could power my heart indefinitely if I didn’t drain it doing something else.”

Steve stared at it, taken aback. “You built that in a cave?”

“You already knew that,” Tony pointed out.

“Yes, but seeing it is… different,” Steve said.

Tony shrugged and started fishing a couple other items out of the box of scraps too. He laid out a soldering iron, transistors and a gold etching pen for rune work. They had all been too obviously for humans, which is why he had hidden them away so that Steve wouldn’t immediately pick up on the discrepancy. The old arc reactor with its telling inscription would have been an immediate red flag. Not that hiding everything made much of a difference, in the end, what with Steve’s greater observational skills.

As he laid out more human-sized tools, he spoke. “I was in Afghanistan for a weapons demonstration. I’m the CEO for Stark Industries, if you didn’t know that. At the time, I really didn’t care how my weapons were used. I just… My dad was a war hero. I was just doing what he, what our company was good at. It’s not an excuse. I was blindly and stupidly doing whatever I wanted. Well, we got ambushed. My military escort… they all died. Protecting me. These young soldiers, just gone. What a waste.”

“They wouldn’t have seen it that way,” Steve said, quiet. “They were soldiers and knights. They were doing their duty.”

“Their duty to die for me? They were _kids_ ,” Tony said, bitter, not wanting to turn around, not wanting to see sympathy in Steve’s eyes.

He had unpacked everything and laid everything out by now. But he still stood with his back to Steve, gripping the edge of his workbench with white-knuckled hands.

 “I woke up with a gaping wound in my chest, a car battery hooked up to my heart to power the shamanic spell Yinsen had put in to keep my torn up heart going. We were both captives of the Ten Rings, the people who ambushed my military envoy and captured Yinsen earlier. Our captors wanted Yinsen to keep me alive and translate, and they wanted me to build weapons and spells for them. They tortured me until I was at the end of my rope, so we pretended to cooperate.”

“Tony…” Steve said softly.

Tony sighed, finally turning around and leaning his back against his workbench. He forced his shoulders down, tried to push back memories of his head plunged in water, the gripping terror as his body spasmed with the desperate need for air, the hand against his head forcing him down and down and…

He rubbed a knuckle against his forehead and continued, “Instead of building them weapons, we built our way out of there. Yinsen’s village used to have a dragon that they looked to as a guardian. Before its death from old age, it had given some of its scales to Yinsen, willingly, which he had woven into his clothing as a badge of honor. Our captors didn’t even know what it was. It’s part of Yinsen’s theory, you know? That you need to use a focus to shapeshift, something with an affinity to the form you’re choosing.”

He abandoned his workbench and went to sit next to Steve again. When Tony could finally make himself look Steve in the face, Steve met his gaze steadily, no judgement or pity in those blue eyes. There was only understanding and support.

With a lack of shame, Tony thrust his hand back towards Steve, who took it without question. Using his free hand, Tony tapped at the ring of gold scales that he had worn around his forearm like a particularly loose bangle. “These are the scales Yinsen gave me.”

Steve looked at the gold scales glinting in the blue light and ran a light finger over the gold band. He looked back down at Tony’s hand that he had in his hold, and ran a curious hand over the faint red scales that rippled beneath Tony’s skin.

Steve spoke in a quiet tone, “Yinsen sounds like a very smart man.”

“The best spellworker to walk the face of this earth,” Tony said in a hoarse voice, forcing his hand to relax in Steve’s hold. He cleared his throat so that he could continue. “We worked together to come up with a shapeshifting spell, to shift into a dragon. We only had dragon scales after all, and a dragon would definitely be enough to take on our captors. With the arc reactor in my chest, we had a power source to feed the shapeshift for twenty minutes. Changing into something as large as a dragon was always viewed as impossible, what with the amount of energy needed. But the arc reactor was perfect for it.

“We took too long and eventually, the guards realized they had been fooled all this while, that we had built them no weapons. We were done, but I was struggling to figure out the shift, to settle into a dragon’s form. So Yinsen ran out there to distract the guards, to buy me time. He gave up his life for me.”

Steve squeezed Tony’s wrist. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

His blue eyes seemed bright and clear, sincere and more beautiful for it.

“He changed my life,” Tony whispered. “I wanted to do better, not to waste my life in turn. You might be wondering why I’m hiding here then.”

“That’s not what I’m wondering.”

“Well, it should be. I’m… I need time. To deal with what happened in Afghanistan. And to learn how to… dragon.”

Steve smiled. “Learn how to _dragon_?”

“It’s a valid verb, if you knew what I had to learn,” Tony insisted, which for some reason made Steve’s eyes crinkled more. “Flying long distances is a lot harder than it looks, and tiring too. Learning how to walk without knocking over everything, how to be aware of my tail and wings.

“And then there was the fire issue. Have you tried breathing fire? No, because humans aren’t meant to breathe fire. I had no idea what I was doing and how to get there, even as this uncomfortable heat kept building in my belly.”

“How did you figure it out?” Steve asked, getting sucked into the story.

“Trial and error. A lot of flying around and bellowing and almost plunging to the ground from the physical imbalance until the fire came,” Tony said.

Steve shook his head. “Of course you did that.”

Tony shrugged, and continued, “So that’s why I’m hiding out. I need time to just figure things out. I haven’t let anyone but Pepper and Rhodey know that I’m still alive, that I escaped. I’ve told you about Rhodey before, my best friend, but he’s also the military liaison for Stark Industries and he encouraged the military to call off the search for me once I told him I was back.

“And since Pepper needed help escaping the confines of her boring princess life for good, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. A new dragon takes over a small piece of territory in Ma’libu and kidnaps a princess. It explains my dragonly presence and Princess Virginia’s disappearance. People still like a good dragon and princess tale, so no one questioned it. In fact, I think real estate prices have gone up with a good dragon tale around here.”

“That sounds like a good reason to be regrouping,” Steve said calmly. “And a good strategy.”

The lack of judgement melted the ice in Tony’s spine, and he slumped more easily against the back of the sofa. And if he leaned a little against Steve’s arm, well, then, no one need know.

But he did feel a twinge of guilt. Because those weren’t the only reasons why he was letting the fiction of dead Tony Stark continue to most of the world.

It was because Tony knew it hadn’t just been a random kidnapping. Someone had sold him out. Someone either in the military or in Stark Industries. Combined with Pepper’s suspicions that someone in Stark Industries was double dealing their weapons, selling to the military and to the Ten Rings, it was better that his enemies thought he was dead while he investigated, rather than having to deal with a frontal attack while he tried to figure out what happened.

But he didn’t tell Steve that because…

He didn’t really know why he didn’t tell Steve that. Maybe because Steve was a knight, and he knew that Steve would want to help in that knightly way of his. But Steve was also part of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Tony didn’t know if he could trust S.H.I.E.L.D. He couldn’t ask Steve to lie to his employers, to not tell them this.

 And Steve had his own secrets that he wasn’t sharing, Tony knew that. If Steve wasn’t sharing everything, then it was better that Tony played some of his cards close to his chest for now, especially when it came to something like a spy within Stark Industries. He trusted Steve, Tony told himself. But he didn’t know if he could trust Steve’s secrets _and_ S.H.I.E.L.D.

He tried to push these uncomfortable thoughts out of his head.

“Hey,” Tony said, deciding he was done with the personal talk. “So, you like my hands?”

He wriggled his hand for emphasis, and Steve suddenly seemed to realize that he had essentially either been holding hands with Tony or patting his arm. He visibly winced and pulled back his hands all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… The scales. They’re amazing.”

“Don’t apologize, I like when people can appreciate the masterpiece that I am,” Tony said with a smirk.

Steve ducked his head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Tony was intrigued by how the tips of Steve’s ears were suddenly red. He wanted to lick that little blush, and startling as that realization was, he quickly stood up from the couch.

“I guess I should find somewhere safe to keep this,” Tony said, shrugging off the ring of gold scales as he stretched a little from the prolonged stillness on the couch. He had a safe deposit box for all things precious, but that was just way too obvious.

He looked back and caught Steve looking at his back where his tank top met skin. Were the flashes of scale really that interesting?

It wasn’t like Tony was going to protest the attention. Instead, he winked at Steve, delighting in the flush that crept up his neck. Tony smiled and slinked his way over to a human-sized work bench. He hung the scales over a lampshade, admiring the way they glinted in the warm light. That would do well enough.

If Steve didn’t move an inch on the couch, if Steve spent the remainder of the afternoon watching him, Tony filed that away for later consideration.

# # # # # #

There were advantages to being able to freely shift between dragon and human shape. For one thing, there was _coffee_. It was a craving that he felt even as a dragon — probably a sign that it was mostly mentally driven — but it had been subdued. As a human, he was mainlining coffee like his life depended on it.

He could also start personally doing maintenance on the sprite-bots again, especially SIZZLE, the little laser-bot that was small and finicky, always hiding from the other bots who wanted to do maintenance for her. Even now, she made little squeaky grumbles when Tony put her on her back for an inspection. She complained particularly loudly when Tony tightened some screws and checked for loose connections.

“Yeah, yeah, what a hardship this is for you,” Tony said as he renewed the runes on the side of SIZZLE with gold paint. “It must be so hard getting all this attention.”

SIZZLE squeaked in disapproval at Tony, obviously not appreciating that her plight wasn’t taken seriously.

Other than an increase in productivity and the ability to enjoy caffeine without needing to consume a gallon of it at a go, Tony also found that he was able to employ sneakier tactics around Steve. Regardless of shape, Tony was usually as subtle as blunt force trauma to the head, but even so, being human-sized was infinitely more suitable for sneakiness as compared to being a dragon the size of a house.

What this meant was that Tony could at least try to get a glimpse of what Steve was drawing.

It wasn’t Tony’s fault that his curiosity was piqued. Steve did a lot of things, like running in the forest, exercising, playing catch with DUM-E, coming up with fabrication challenges for BUTTERFINGERS, helping the cleaner bots as they followed worshipfully after him…

And he drew. A lot.

This wouldn’t have been particularly fascinating except Steve mostly kept his book shut and fended off Tony’s requests to see his art. That was like telling a dragon that his more precious treasure had another hidden treasure in it that said dragon wasn’t allowed to see. Hypothetically. It absolutely had no relation to reality.

Then Steve had talked about how he had forgone drawing for a very long time.

“There just wasn’t time. I had other… more important things to do. There was war,” Steve said, wearing that slightly pained look of his that made Tony want to shower him with all the gifts and treasures he wanted until he stopped looking like that. It was Tony’s inner dragon that couldn’t help thinking that everything could be cured with more gifts and treasures.

And that talk about war. Was Steve in the Afghanistan or Iraq War? He never spoke about it in detail.

Regardless, what Tony could infer from all this was that Steve hadn’t drawn for a very long time. But nowadays, he seemed to draw quite a fair bit.

So Tony was intrigued which according to Pepper, made him nosy. She also claimed a lot of other things like how he obviously had a big crush and should stop trying to mask it as curiosity, but he tuned her out at that point. Blah blah blah, something about always talking about Steve, blah blah, something about being distracted these days. Even if Tony did have a crush on Steve, which he wasn’t saying he did, it wasn’t a big deal because probably most of the world’s population would have a crush on Steve Rogers if they ever met him.

In any case, that was totally irrelevant in the face of Tony’s purely innocent curiosity.

Pepper had snorted at that too, when she had heard him say that.

Between maintenance on SIZZLE, Tony peeked from beneath his lashes and watched Steve who was standing with his back to the far wall. He had an easel set up and was painting, something that he had started with cautious strokes. Earlier, he had a deep frown and his hands moved slowly, uncertainty written across his frame. An hour later and his shoulders were relaxed, his expression one of beatific calm as he daubed and stroked, wielding his paintbrush with a maestro’s confident air.

SIZZLE the laser-bot beeped indignantly at him for holding her in place even though maintenance was done. He sighed and turned her upright again before patting her back. He got rewarded by an angry red glow from her before she scuttled off.

It was time to put his plans in motion. Tony gestured at JARVIS to form a glowing blue projection between his hands. He cupped his hands, squeezing them closer together, and JARVIS shrunk the projected sphere to fit within his hold.

He turned to DUM-E and ‘tossed’ the glowing ball to him. DUM-E let out a beep of delight and ‘caught’ the ball in its claw. JARVIS obligingly projected the arc and trajectory of the ball, based on Tony’s and DUM-E’s throws in their game of catch. Tony started to angle his body, moving so that his back was towards Steve and _coincidentally_ moving closer to him.

It was only a matter of time before DUM-E’s enthusiasm swept him up and he tossed the ball too hard. The projected glowing ball sailed pass Tony’s head and right over Steve and his easel, bouncing off the ground with acute realism. Tony pretended to duck around the easel to scoop up the virtual ball. When he straightened, he looked right at the painting Steve had been working on.

He stared.

It was an acrylic painting of _him_ , Tony, bent over a cleaning bot and working on it with a teasing smile on his face. It must have been sketched a few days ago and Steve had been working on it since. The background behind him was almost an impressionist take of the cavern, filled with formless blue light and faint shadows that could have been Tony’s bots, including a vague angular shape that looked like it might have a dunce cap. But Tony’s face and bare shoulders under the tank top, right down to his slender fingers, were drawn with much detail. His eyes were a rich warm brown, his mouth slightly parted in a soft smile. Running down one shoulder to his elbow was the stunning detail of gleaming red and gold scales, following the graceful curve of his bicep.

Tony’s hand clenched involuntarily and because JARVIS had a wicked sense of humor, the virtual ball exploded in a shower of blue light. DUM-E made a surprised sound from behind the easel.

Steve, who had been so engrossed he hadn’t even noticed what Tony was doing, jumped at the blue light spilling around him and finally turned to see Tony staring at his painting.

“Oh, I… Uh…” Steve was clearly embarrassed, faint red dusting his cheeks even as he tilted his chin up and met Tony’s gaze head on. It made Tony want to kiss him stupid.

Tony resisted the impulse manfully. No point scaring Steve off at this point.

“I think you got my good side there,” Tony said. “Although every side is my good side.”

Steve rubbed his nose, not realizing that he left a streak of red across his nose. It was the same red he used for Tony’s scales, and though it was irrational and senseless, Tony felt a surge of pleasure and possessiveness at the sight.

 _My treasure_ , Tony thought, _marked with my colours_.

Steve gave him an awkward shrug. “I never got to practise painting much, so if you think this is good in any sense, then that’s already a big achievement.”

“You’re being much too modest. I have a collection of art that would make museums envious, so I know good art when I see it, and yours is good,” Tony said, trying to will Steve to believe him, because in no world should Steve seem so uncertain about his own work.

Steve had talent. Sure, Tony might not be an expert on drawing and painting techniques, but even to his unseasoned eye, he could tell that Steve drew and painted with his heart. Tony had photos and paintings done of him, and he didn’t think he ever looked as natural and passionate as he did on Steve’s easel.

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said, looking back to his painting as he tried to hide a small smile.

“No, thank _you_. You’ve memorialized my devilish good looks after all,” Tony said with an open grin.

Steve let out an undignified chortle. “I’ll be sure to call the painting that. Devilish Good Looks.”

“And sign your name at the bottom too! A signed Steve Rogers original could make me a pretty penny in the future,” Tony said, clasping Steve on the shoulder as he walked by.

“Who said I’m giving it to you?” Steve called after him. “Maybe I want to keep this painting so I can have a record of your devilish good looks.”

Oh, was that flirting? Tony was going to take it as flirting. Tony turned around and gestured at his face. “You can always just look at the real thing instead.”

“Well… it won’t be the same in a couple years, right?” Steve said with a mischievous smile. 

Tony sniffed. “Excuse me, I’ll have you know that I’m like fine wine, I’ll only look better as I age.”

Steve smiled. “I’ll reserve judgement for a couple years.”

Tony spluttered and feigned outrage, even as he thrilled in delight internally. Steve was all but saying that he was going to be hanging around for at least a couple years. The possessive lizard in him purred with contentment.

Later that day, Tony found a thick parchment on his table, with a sketch drawn on it of someone that looked remarkably like Tony despite it being a caricature, complete with oversized head on a tiny body. The little Tony was posing in front of a mirror, egoistically preening, and underneath the sketch was the caption, ‘Devilish Good Looks’, along with a signature of Steve’s name in beautiful cursive. The cavern echoed with Tony’s peals of laughter.

The sketch was pinned to a cave wall and became one of his most valued additions to his treasure.

# # # # # #

The days in Steve’s company passed quickly. Amidst the playful banter and late night talks, between morning flights and physical sparring as dragon versus knight, Tony still tried to ferret out what was going on in his company.

His kidnapping in Afghanistan occurred six months ago, which meant he had six more months to figure out the truth behind the double dealing before his hand was forced. According to Tony’s own will, he would be presumed dead if he was missing for a year and his will would be executed at that point. Considering all his personal research and tinkering involving dangerous tech and magic, there was no way he could let that fall into someone else’s hands.

But it was difficult to investigate what was going on behind the scenes at Stark Industries when he had no access and when the only trusted insider in his own company was Pepper, who was a junior accountant. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to fake his death and stay hidden so as to catch the person who paid for the hit on him. Being out of the loop made it difficult to really find out what was going on.

It didn’t help that he had pretty much perfected the security on Stark Industries before the ill-fated trip to Afghanistan. There was no way he would be able to access any files from outside the Stark Industries’ network without sending up some red flags.

Of course he had put in a backdoor, but the problem was that his backdoor was only accessible from within his Stark Industries’ office or his own home, neither of which he could just stroll into without being spotted. Maybe he was being paranoid, but he was pretty sure they suspected he hadn’t died when he set fire to the Ten Rings’ camp where he had been held, and that there were people watching his usual haunts.

Before his kidnapping, Tony had been a far less suspicious person. He had never thought there would come a day when he wouldn’t be able to get into his own office or home. How he had lacked imagination back then.

So, he had to come up with a different method of attack.

# # # # # #

“Just be careful,” Tony said, handing over the little USB drive that housed his newest fire sprite. She had been raring to go for days, blazing through the test simulations he had been running. “JOCASTA should be able to mimic the company’s firewalls and tunnel through even from your lower level access. JARVIS and I have been working on this solution for a while, and it should work. But in the worst case scenario, if security measures are tripped, you don’t want to be caught with the USB plugged into your station, so once JOCASTA has what we need, get out of there as soon as possible.”

Pepper looked nervous but determined. “I’ll be careful. In and out, that’s all.”

“Exactly,” Tony said, even as he desperately wished that he didn’t have to get Pepper to do this.

He had been trying to come up with a different way, any way where he didn’t have to risk one of the few friends he had in his life. But there had simply been no other solution, not with how tightly Stark Industries was locked down.

“We’ll find out who’s behind the kidnapping and murder attempt,” Pepper said. She stepped forward and hugged him, pressing a kiss to his cheek when he hugged her back. “Stop frowning, it looks strange on you.”

Tony smiled at her, at brave and fiery Pepper who was too good for the boring princess life. “I thought it made me looked distinguished.”

“Who has been telling you lies?” Pepper teased. “Will that be all, Mister Stark?”

“That will be all, Miss Potts.”

It was a joke between them, a faux formality combined with how it completely ignored Pepper’s royal background. They both smiled, expressions relaxing a little with the familiar, comfortable joke.

Tony watched Pepper go, watched until Pepper disappeared out of sight amongst the forest trees.

“I know you’re there,” Tony called out. “What are you doing slinking around like that?”

To give credit where it was due, Steve didn’t try to conceal his presence any further. He stepped out from behind a tree thirty feet away. So, his hearing must be pretty sharp to be able to eavesdrop from that distance.

“Magic or enhanced hearing from the dragon?” Steve asked curiously.

“Magic. A wind sprite told me. But if I’m in dragon shape, I wouldn’t need magic to hear you. Now, why are you lurking around like that?”

“You didn’t tell me that someone was trying to kill you,” Steve said, frowning. “How did you know it wasn’t just a kidnapping?”

Tony sighed. “Yinsen overheard the Ten Rings saying that if they knew who I was, they would have charged more for the assassination attempt. They thought if I could produce weapons for them, then maybe I could make up for the undercharge.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that? I could help you find out what’s going on.” Steve looked distinctly hurt as he said it, casting a confused gaze towards Tony.

“How would you be able to help?” Tony asked. “The mastermind has got to be within Stark Industries, and you don’t have access to get into the company.”

“On a longer term, I could get a job in there. But if we’re on a short timeframe, there’s always direct infiltration.”

Tony threw his hands up. “Breaking and entering, just what I want to hear from a knight’s mouth. As for getting a job there, we can’t get you into a position that would be useful for infiltration on such short notice without raising suspicions. It would be too risky.”

Steve’s jaw was set. “Why don’t you let us decide what’s risky? Like how you let Pepper decide if she wanted to help or not.”

“And I hate that I have to ask her to risk her position and life like that,” Tony interrupted. “The only reason why Pepper can even do what is needed is because she spent years establishing a fake identity in preparation to run away from her life as a princess. It’s a rock solid cover.”

Tony knew Steve well enough by now to know that even as he said this, it wouldn’t be enough to deter Steve. It often seemed like Steve didn’t know how to be wary of risky situations. In fact, he seemed to want to jump straight into dangerous situations, like a suicidal monkey charging a growling dragon head on. Oh yes, which was something Steve had done before.

“I could enter the company without being caught. I don’t need a long established cover story to be of use. Instead of just hanging around here—”

“What’s wrong with hanging around here?” Tony interjected, hurt.

But Steve just kept going. “—I could be breaking in. I have experience with this kind of operation, if you would only let me help.”

“You mean you have experience with this under S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony pointed out. “I don’t trust S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“You don’t trust me,” Steve said, his tone a touch accusatory and offended.

“I didn’t say that. It’s great that you want to help, but I have it under control for the moment,” Tony said, turning around to walk away.

Steve reached out and snagged his arm. “For God’s sake, why can’t you accept help that is being offered to you?”

“Maybe because I don’t know who’s offering it,” Tony snapped out as he whipped around, the truth spilling out.

Steve stared. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean that I don’t really know who you are. Maybe you are right, I don’t trust you; I don’t know if I _can_ trust you. I know you have secrets and I know there’s something hinky going on about your identity. And it’s fine if you don’t want to tell me about any of your secrets, but don’t tell me to trust you to help when you don’t even trust me with who you really are,” Tony said as he shrugged out of Steve’s loosening hold.

He hadn’t meant for it to come out like this, but he couldn’t help it, lashing out with frustration when Steve cornered him. But Tony knew it sounded all the worse because there was some element of truth to it and it rang clear in Tony’s voice.

“You know the parts that matter,” Steve said hoarsely. “Everything else… it would just change things if you knew. It’s not because I don’t trust you.”

Did Tony know all the parts that mattered? He knew how Steve drank his coffee, black with sugar and no milk, and he knew the kind of music Steve liked, even though he seemed woefully ignorant of music from the recent decades. He knew how Steve trained, Steve’s sense of humor, how Steve reacted when confronted with danger, Steve’s compassion and understanding, Steve’s strength and stubbornness, how Steve could be hard on himself and even hard on others, how their personalities resulted in a constant push and pull dynamic…

But was that enough?

Tony wanted to say yes. The dragon deep inside him wanted to rumble that Steve was his treasure regardless…

It was true. That was true, much as Tony tried to avoid facing it. He viewed Steve as his treasure, as infinitely precious, and it was scary how quickly Steve had gained this place in Tony’s heart. It also hurt all the more that Tony treasured him this way, had shared his deepest and darkest pain with him, but Steve didn’t trust Tony in turn with who he really was and what he was doing with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Even in a moment like this, Tony realized that Steve wasn’t offering to tell him.

“It sure as hell feels like it’s because you don’t trust me,” Tony said, staring at Steve, willing him to budge an inch, to give Tony _something_.

“It’s not about you,” Steve said, shaking his head.

Well, that was true enough. Tony pushed down the hurt welling up from deep inside.

“You’re right, it isn’t about me. You don’t owe me anything, including the truth or your help,” Tony said and turned away, leaving Steve with clenched fists behind him.

Tony was shrugging the loose ring of gold scales down his forearm as he walked, always carrying them this way when he was outside the cavern. Tony pulled out his arc reactor and pressed his scales into place as he walked. By the time he reached the bottom of the cliff that led up to his lair, the air around him rippled as mist swirled up from his hands and feet. He felt his breath sucked out of his lungs, skin stretching as fiery heat ate out from the marrows of his bones and consumed the rest of him.

He knew the shape of his human body trembled and wavered as the mist thickened and eventually obscured him out of sight. His attempt to suck in air turned into a harsh growl, before gold-taloned feet reached up from the mist, and he started to claw himself up the cliff in full dragon form.

He didn’t go into his lair; he went right up to the top of the mountain and laid there, closing his eyes and trying to sleep away his inner turmoil. He wanted to be unconscious just so he didn’t have to think about the argument he just had with Steve, but his active mind just played out the scene over and over again, picking apart how it went wrong.

After a fitful attempt at a nap, he flew down from his lair to the forest floor, taking a look around with his senses and magic.

Steve was gone.

# # # # # #

Tony spent the night in the forest. He had followed Steve’s trail right up to the edge of the forest, where the road led back to the City of Ma’libu. He stood there, staring at the road, wondering what would happen if he followed after in his human form. But in the end, he turned back and went back into the shelter of his mountain’s shadow with an angry snap of his long tail.

There was too much at stake now. It wasn’t just his own investigation at risk, it was Pepper’s life he would be gambling with.

He couldn’t believe that Steve had left after just one argument. They had said some harsh words, but it wasn’t even the worst argument Tony had ever gotten into. He felt confused, more than a little hurt, and he took it out by stomping around the forest, before settling down when the earth sprites raised their protests.

It seemed petty. It seemed strangely cowardly of Steve to turn tail at the first sign of disagreement. Steve might have his secrets, but he wasn’t wrong when he had said that Tony _knew_ him. Steve wasn’t the sort who would just run off at the first sign of conflict. He was the sort to butt heads against that conflict, push back with all he had.

Or so Tony thought.

Maybe he really didn’t know Steve that well after all.

Deep down, Tony wondered if maybe Steve had wanted to leave all this time. Maybe he had been chafing at the isolation over here, bored by having only Tony — JARVIS, DUM-E, Butterfingers, U, and all the other sprite-bots — for company. Maybe he had just been looking for an excuse to go.

No, much as Tony liked a good wallow and sulk, that didn’t seem like Steve. Steve wouldn’t need to look for an excuse to do something he really wanted to do.

But maybe he had been a little bored, nothing much to do except wander around a large cavern and put up with Tony’s one-sided interest in him. Maybe this argument had been the final straw to break the camel’s back.

And on top of all this, there was the constant churning worry in Tony’s head, wondering what Pepper was doing, whether she was getting away with slipping JOCASTA behind the company’s firewalls.

He didn’t need this right now, didn’t need the additional worry on top of what should be the culmination of his and Pepper’s plans. It made him angry, puffing out smoke with every breath, wondering why Steve had to do this now.

Then he felt guilty that he was feeling angry at Steve, which made no sense at all. Steve had no obligation to stay on in Tony’s lair, and Tony didn’t have any right to be angry. Why was he such a mess when it came to Steve?

At the foot of the mountain, Tony slept curled up into a ball, tail coiled tightly around his heated body and head tucked under his wings to stay hidden from the outside world.

As dawn came, FRIDAY, his favorite wind sprite, whispered in his ear with a message from BUSTER, his perimeter sprite-bot. Someone had crossed his threshold, someone new who wasn’t on the approved list. The approved list had all of three people, consisting of Pepper, Rhodey and Steve.

Tony unfolded in a long slithering stretch of coiled scales and hot breath. If it was another knight seeking fame and glory by rescuing the princess, he wouldn’t go so lightly on them this time.

But this newcomer was only halfway to the mountain when Tony knew immediately that this wasn’t a real stranger and he wasn’t any knight either.

Tony took to the sky, diving over the treetops and straight for the rockface illusion on the side of his mountain. He didn’t want to see this visitor, not now, not like this, but he wasn’t sure if he had a choice.

He dove into the large tunnel leading to his lair and when he reached the end of the tunnel, he hit the button to shut the massive sliding door to his lair while he remained in the tunnel. This second illusion spell made the giant metal door look like the end of a tunnel, with nothing else beyond. He knew he had been spotted going into the side of the mountain, so if he actually retreated into his lair and closed the door, it would only be a matter of time before the hidden door was discovered. He didn’t want that, because he wasn’t sure if he could trust this visitor to all the things in his cavern.

He had to wait another hour before he heard hoofbeats clomping vertically up the side of his mountain. Of course his visitor had an enchanted horse with him. It wasn’t like he was some lowly knight who had to rescue princesses the hard way. This man probably didn’t care at all about rumors of the princess kidnapped here. Defying gravity and physics, the pure white horse trotted up over the sheer side of the mountain and through the illusion in the front, not even hesitating at the rock-face mirage. The horse stopped the moment it was horizontal again, its nose flaring in agitation at the sight of the large dragon at the back of the tunnel even as its rider dismounted. The large figure loomed beside the horse from the mouth of the tunnel before walking in sedately.

“You had to make me ride a horse all the way to this forest, ride the nine miles into the forest and then come up this mountain, didn’t you? You always did like to be a challenge, my boy,” Obadiah Stane said, putting his hands into his pockets.

Tony let out a low growl and a small puff of threatening fire, narrowing his eyes into slits. The spines on his back were bristling, presenting a good imitation of an angry dragon.

Obadiah was unimpressed, waving a hand in front of his face to dispel the smoke from the small fire. “You can drop the charade now. I don’t know why you felt the need to hide out here all this while, but it’s unnecessary, I promise you. If you’re afraid of something, you should know that I can help you. You had me so worried, I wasn’t sure if you were still alive.”

Tony bared his teeth, which Obadiah responded to with more words, his deep voice resonating in the tunnel as he spoke with intense passion. “Listen to me, Tony. We're a team. Do you understand that? There's nothing we can't do if we stick together, like how your father and I did. We built everything together from nothing. He knew we were stronger together, just like how you and I are stronger together. Just tell me what you need from me.”

The gig was up. Tony knew there was no point in the pretence. The reminder of Obie’s relationship with Howard and how Tony had worried him, it all made Tony feel a little bad for not getting a message to Obie that he was still alive. There had just been so much going on and he wasn’t sure who he could trust.

Tony let out a smoky sigh. “Hello, Obie.”

Obie came nearer, stopping a few feet away and opening his arms wide as if he could hug a dragon. “Look at you! You’re alive! You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”

“Really? You’re happy to see me in the shape of a big red and gold dragon?” Tony asked.

“I’m happy to see you in any shape, as long as you’re alive,” Obie said, sounding hurt.

Now Tony felt bad again. Then he saw a familiar vulture shape swooping into the tunnel and landing on a large rock outcrop on the ground near Obie. Even though he had his suspicions, he had to ask.

“How did you find out I was still alive and over here?”

Obie shook his head. “I know you too well, my boy. That young Pepper Potts girl from accounting seemed familiar and one day, it clicked that her mannerisms were similar to Princess Virginia, who was your good friend. I almost didn’t recognize her, what with how she changed her looks. I guessed that she didn’t just join our company out of sheer coincidence and that she knew something.”

“You had Pepper followed?” Tony asked, incredulous. “I suppose I never sensed anything because you were using that vulture familiar of yours and all his enchantments.”

“He followed from very far away,” Obie said with a shrug.

Tony shot a sidelong look at the vulture who shifted uncomfortably under the stare of such a large predator. He didn’t like being defeated by a vulture, but he couldn’t hate it either, despite the fact that Obie had often used the vulture to find out where Tony was hiding when he was avoiding the world at large. It wasn’t like the vulture had much choice.

Obie didn’t have much natural magic or spellwork know-how himself, but he purchased as much magical paraphernalia as possible, from flying horses to potential familiars. The one magical ability he did have was to create a controlled bond with an animal familiar, from which he could see what they see and take over their bodies, but it was a branch of magic Tony didn’t know much about _and_ had no interest to learn.

“Following Pepper from a distance doesn’t make it any less creepy,” Tony said, pulling his attention back to Obie who was coming closer.

“What could I do? I was worried sick, and I thought Pepper was hiding something. She could have been the person in Stark Industries who was behind your kidnapping for all I knew,” Obie said with a shake of his head.

“Pepper? Pepper Potts behind my kidnapping? Is that a joke?” Tony said, rearing his head back in offence on her behalf. If she were there, she would have slapped Obie for that comment.

“I had no idea what was going on,” Obie said again, holding his hands out apologetically. “Now, how about we settle what happened among civilized company again. If you need protection from someone, we can arrange it. You’ll get it better than from this… quaint tunnel. Really, boy, is this where you would always come to hide, even before the Afghanistan trip? I would have thought you would have put more effort into making it comfortable at least.”

Tony shifted uncomfortably. Usually, when he really didn’t want to do something that Obie was pressing for, he just left the room. Obie was too persuasive sometimes. But there was nowhere for Tony to go now. Sure, he was several times larger than Obie and he could breathe fire, but it wasn’t like he wanted to flambé Obie just because they disagreed.

Obie continued, as if to fill the silence, “And we should talk about this shapeshifting into a dragon thing. That is quite remarkable, Tony. Is that a miniaturized arc reactor in your chest powering the change? Very impressive. I imagine you have all kinds of plans for Stark Industries to weaponise shapeshifting into one of the world’s most dangerous creatures, and also the miniaturized arc reactor, the potential alone—”

“No, no, I don’t,” Tony said sharply.

Obie drew back, looking tall and impressive even with the size difference between them. “What do you mean by that?”

Tony shook his large head slowly. “When I was captured, I saw young Americans killed by the very weapons I created to defend them and protect them.”

“And we’ll find out what happened there.” Obie interrupted, obviously trying to appease him.

“It’s not good enough,” Tony said, his voice sonorous and steadfast, echoing in the large tunnel. “I had become part of a system that is comfortable with zero accountability. But I had my eyes opened by someone who sacrificed himself so I could make it out alive. He made me realize that I have more to offer this world than just making things that blow up.”

“Look, you shouldn’t make any rash—”

“Once I’m back and declared alive again, I’m shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries. Effective immediately,” Tony said, bending his long neck to look Obie in the eye. He knew he looked intimidating, and he didn’t care.

Obie looked up at him with a twist to his mouth. “Tony, we’re a weapons manufacturer.”

Tony’s voice was a quiet rumble. “Obie, I don’t want a body count to be our only legacy.”

“That’s what we do.” Obie was starting to sound irritated now. “We’re iron mongers. We make weapons.”

Whatever Tony said, it wasn’t going to make a difference. Tony knew Obie just didn’t get it, and he probably was never going to get it. Obie had been in this business for longer than Tony had been alive, and it had taken Tony’s chest being carved open, literally and figuratively, for him to see the light.

“It’s my name on the side of the building,” Tony pointed out, fed up.

This time, he was certain he saw the flash of cold anger in Obie’s eyes. “What we’re doing keeps the world from falling into chaos.”

“Not based on what I saw. We’re not doing a good enough job. We can do better, do something different,” Tony tried to explain, even when he knew it was a pointless argument against Obie.

Obie turned his head aside as if in disgust.

FRIDAY, the wind sprite, gently blew against the side of Tony’s head, carrying a message from his phone that he had left inside his lair. Tony startled, and his laser focus on Obie broke. Which made him think… there was something niggling at him in the back of his mind.

“ _Tony, Tony, are you there? Listen,_ ” FRIDAY was repeating the message in perfect imitation of Pepper’s voice.

But Tony’s mind was already churning through all the tense comments that were exchanged and latched on a little anomaly. “Wait, why did you suspect Pepper? How did you know there was someone inside Stark Industries who arranged my kidnapping?”

“ _It’s Obadiah! It was Obadiah behind—_ ”

A sharp piercing sound filled the cave, enveloped Tony, scraped against his scales until every inch of him clenched and froze. He couldn’t move an inch even if he tried.

Tony knew what this was, but it couldn’t be, it was discontinued…

Obie came right up to him, touching him lightly on the nose with a calming caress. “Breathe. Easy, easy... You remember this one, right?”

Tony remembered alright.

“It's a shame the government didn't approve it,” Obie continued. “There's so many applications for causing short-term paralysis.”

Not when the technological and magical auditory attacks had a thirty percent chance of fatality.

Tony tried to move, even if it was just to breathe out fire. Because all the pieces were tumbling into place at lightning speed, and he knew what this meant. How could Obie be the one behind it all? Obie had been like a father figure to him when Howard was absent and then dead. Obie had a photo framed in his office of Tony as a toddler being carried on Obie’s hip. Obie had sat on the ground and played toy trains with him, wiped his tears and gave him relationship advice.

How could the same man arrange the attack, kill so many American soldiers, try to have Tony killed… except that Obie was standing right in front of him, using Tony’s own creation against him with a cold smile on his lips.

“Tony, when I ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose. But, you see, it was just fate that you survived that. You had one last golden egg to give.” Obie stepped forward, tapping his fingers against Tony’s arc reactor, as a clear indicator of what he meant.

He removed a pair of gloves from his back pockets and pulled them on. Tony could see the tiny runes scrolling all over the gloves. Tony tried to move, tried to fill his lungs with heat at least, but nothing seemed to work and he just lay there, unable to even twitch one scale.

Then Obie laid his gloved hands on the arc reactor and turned.

Tony screamed. Or at least, he tried to. It hurt. Much more than it normally did. Maybe because it was removed by another’s hand or removed without his permission. Whatever the reason, the pain was like lava being poured into his arc reactor, filling up the hole that was left when Obie slowly slid out the arc reactor. The burn started at his chest and snaked out out, a web of pain sizzling across his skin and flesh and muscle as he felt his body beginning to shrink and change.

In seconds, he was a heap of human body on the ground, aching like he had been split open and newly birthed from the shell of his previous shape.

He could see Obie standing there, the arc reactor in one hand. The spell on it ensured that it had shrunk once removed from Tony’s body. Now it lay on Obie’s hand, glowing blue light spilling out from within its delicate metal frame.

“Oh, it's beautiful.” Obie turned it over in his hand, sizing it up with the sharp gleam of avarice in his eyes even as his voice murmured in hushed satisfaction. “Tony, this is your Ninth Symphony. What a masterpiece. Look at that. This is your legacy.”

Then he leaned down, and with no ceremony, he dug his nails into the ring of gold scales around Tony’s chest and pulled, tearing off the ring. If Tony could scream, he would. He felt like his chest had been flayed, the backlash of the scales being removed by someone’s hands other than his own biting into his skin. Those scales had been given to Yinsen, who had in turn given them to Tony. They didn’t want to go with Obie, ripping out Tony’s skin and flesh with the forced removal. The shock of the sharp pain blanked out everything in Tony’s mind.

When he felt his mind registering what was happening again, Obie was still talking over him, but now with a torn, half ring of scales in his hand, blood gleaming against the scales. The other half of the ring of scales fell scattered to the ground, unnoticed.

“And you thought you could hide this from me?” Obie said in a lecturing, disappointed tone. “That you’ve finally cracked the secret of shapeshifting into something as large as a _dragon_ , and you were going to keep it all to yourself? You’ve always been a self-centered, short-sighted child. Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now, what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?”

How did Obie know about the scales, how Tony used them to shapeshift into a dragon? There were only three people in the world who knew. Could one of them had told Obie? But Tony couldn’t imagine that, not of Pepper, Rhodey or Steve. The only one he didn’t know as long was Steve, but surely not Steve…

Then his eyes lit upon Obie’s vulture familiar, the bird staring back at him uncaringly. Of course… Obie had been following Pepper, so he probably had the vulture watch over this place as well. When Tony had revealed his human shape to Steve, he had done it up on top of the mountain, in the open air for any eavesdropping vulture to listen in. He hadn’t even thought to set his perimeter bots, his wind sprites in the air, to watch out for suspicious birds, because it would have resulted in so many false alarms. He hadn’t even tried to figure out a way to detect for possessed familiars.

Tony could have kicked himself for his own carelessness, if he wasn’t stuck unmoving on the ground.

Obie turned to Tony who was still paralyzed, grinning with bone-white teeth as he loomed over Tony’s prone form, radiating intimidation and spite even in the face of his inevitable victory. “A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Missiles and bombs, shapeshifting monsters… weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in the right hands. _Our_ hands.”

Tony stared up at him, his muscles locked in too tight to even frown or glare. It could be entirely mental, but he thought he could feel his heart racing, struggling, tripping without the arc reactor helping his damaged heart to pump.

Obie wasn’t done delivering verbal toxic waste. He leaned down. “Too bad you had to involve Pepper in this. I liked her. I would have preferred that she lived.”

He turned around and stalked to the entrance where his horse waited. Tony could only watch as his large vulture took to the air and flew out of the tunnel ahead of Obie. In less than a minute, Obie was gone, taking the arc reactor with him.

The arc reactor that Tony needed to _live_.

Tony lay there, hearing his sluggish pulse echoing in his ears, feeling his heart struggle beneath his shallow breaths. Was his heartbeat slow because of the sonic spell, or was it because his heart was already struggling without his arc reactor? His limbs ached from the forced transformation, ached enough for a spasm to wrack his hands.

Wait, that meant…

Tony closed his hands into fists with what felt like a great effort of will. He shuddered, taking a deep breath. The paralysis was wearing off, _finally_. But it wasn’t wearing off fast enough. It felt like he was turning the Earth when he turned his body, rolled so that he faced towards the back of the tunnel and the illusion that hid the entrance to his lair. He was glad that he had closed the door, because who knew what havoc Obie would have wrecked in Tony’s lair, what more weapons and spells he would have taken.

Stretching an arm out, he pulled himself forward with half-frozen limbs, inching along until he could touch his fingertips against the door. The rocky illusion disappeared and the metal door rolled open. Tony crawled in at an impossibly, painfully slow pace, dragging himself on his front, clawing at the ground as he fought against his body to move, just _move_. He could feel his breath coming in shorter now as he struggled for air, as his heart struggled to continue pumping blood through his body.

“Sir, sir, what’s wrong?” JARVIS asked, sounding panicked.

Tony couldn’t move his lips, wasn’t sure if his lungs even had enough air to speak anymore. He realized he was on his front, that JARVIS couldn’t see the gaping hole in his chest. Any minute now, one of the wind sprites would respond to JARVIS’ agitation and tell him what transpired outside his view, but by then, it would probably be too late. What could JARVIS, a bodiless sprite-bot do? A haze was fogging Tony’s mind, his strength flagging. He couldn’t even feel his limbs anymore, even as he tried to continue moving his body forward.

He could see a faint blue glow on his desk, still in the little glass box Pepper had put together for him. “Evidence that Tony Stark has a heart,” framing his very first arc reactor. He stretched his hand out, trying… If only he could, if only… 

He collapsed on his front.

He was going to die, his company would keep churning out weapons, and he was never going to see Steve again. He was going to die before he fixed things with Steve, and Pepper was going to die with him too when she only wanted to be free and to help…

No, he needed to stop Obie, to save Pepper, he needed to… but he couldn’t move any further. He had nothing left, not a thimble of energy. He gasped, too tired and hurt to cry even though he wanted to.

 “ _Beep_?” Something nudged him in his shoulder.

He turned his head from where he had his forehead pressed to the floor. DUM-E, his ridiculous and hopeless single-armed helper sprite-bot who didn’t actually help with much of anything but provide Tony with indispensably loyal and comedic company… DUM-E prodded him in the arm again with the glass box containing his old arc reactor.

Hope filled Tony’s chest. He grabbed it with a last reserve of strength that he didn’t know he had, and smashed the box against the floor beside him. The glass box shattered, even as DUM-E beeped in alarm. Tony ignored the shards of glass as he picked up the arc reactor with trembling hands, and pressed it desperately into his chest again. It clicked into place.

Finally, Tony took his first real breath of air ever since Obie removed the arc reactor from his chest, feeling the strain seeping out of his body as the arc reactor powered his heart where his heart had been failing.

DUM-E beeped at him again in confusion.  

Tony pressed a hand against the side of DUM-E’s camera and his silly sprite-bot leaned happily against his touch.

“Good boy,” Tony said, full of affection and gratitude. “Now, let’s go stop that asshole.”

# # # # # #

It took a few minutes for Tony to gain enough strength to stumble back out of his lair towards the tunnel that led outside. He paused along the way, stooping to pick up the scattered gold dragon scales that Obie had left behind when he had ripped the ring of scales off Tony’s chest. He continued stumbling onwards, with the scales cutting into the palm of his hand, before he heard a piercing cry coming from the front. He came to a stop and propped himself up against the rocky wall. Was Obie coming back for another round, to check if Tony was really dead?

Then the sound rang out again and this time, Tony recognized the eagle’s screech for what it was. Tony relaxed a little. He waited, catching his breath until a familiar figure leapt onto mouth of the entrance from the back of a flying creature. Even with his face in shadow, body a silhouette with the bright sun against his back, Tony could recognize who it was.

“Jackalope, it’s so good to see you,” Tony said, voice hoarse from a dry mouth and throat.

“Tones, what the hell did you get yourself into,” Rhodey said, coming forward quickly to help prop Tony up on one shoulder. “Pepper called me, panicking and saying something about Obadiah wanting to kill you. What the hell is going on?”

“Where's Pepper?” Tony asked as he leaned most of his weight on Rhodey, still taking determined but slow steps forward.

“She's fine. She's with five S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Since when did you work with S.H.I.E.L.D.? Anyway, they're about to arrest Obadiah.”

Tony paused, turned to stare wide-eyed at Rhodey. “That's not going to be enough. Come on, we need to move faster.”

“Where are we going?”

“To where Pepper is. I’m guessing Ma’libu’s Stark Industries branch, if they’re looking to arrest Obie.”

“You need a ride?” Rhodey asked when they reached the entrance of the tunnel and he gestured outside at his gryphon. The light brown feathered creature was circling with lazy flaps of her eagle wings, before swooping into the tunnel and dropping down to a graceful landing on her lion’s feet, right next to Rhodey. She rubbed her beaked head affectionately against Rhodey’s side, and he smoothed down the feathers on the back of her neck.

 “Hi, Jemma,” Tony said. “I would love a ride, but maybe some other time.”

Rhodey frowned. “Then how are you getting there? A car is going to be slower.”

“I’ve got my own winged ride now,” Tony said. “You might want to step back.”

Under Rhodey’s horrified gaze, Tony pulled out the arc reactor, and then he pressed the remaining scales against his chest, feeling them meld against his torn and bleeding skin, the power within the scales reaching out to soothe over his pain. He popped the arc reactor back into its socket, feeling it click into place on top of the leftover scales.

Please let it work, please let it work. He didn’t know if the remaining scales were going to be enough for the spell…

He felt a rush of power surge over him, magic and strength flowing from the arc reactor into the scales. The spell caught and took, the power spreading over him like a familiar cocoon of spellwork. His sense memory prickled with the murmur of Yinsen’s gentle touch, that firm voice… This was Yinsen’s handicraft combined with his own; he should have known there was no way it would fail.

The transformation took over him, and he noticed distantly as Rhodey backed up to press against the wall of the tunnel. Mist gusted through the tunnel as his form stretched, whispered into the air until he resolidified as hard red and gold scales, glowing blue reptilian eyes and a fire churning deep in his belly. He turned his head to look at Rhodey through his draconic senses. This one tasted like the wind, like flight, but with the comforting warmth of the noon sky against flapping wings, dependable and strong.

“That's the coolest thing I've ever seen,” Rhodey said almost breathlessly.

Tony grinned, a show of sharp fangs. “Not bad, huh?”

Then he leaned down and rubbed a large head against Rhodey’s side. Jemma screeched her disapproval at this encroachment of her territory, while Rhodey pushed ineffectually against Tony’s head.

“Ugh, why are you doing this? And how can you even talk as a dragon?”

“To both questions… because I want to,” Tony said. “Now, let’s go. Call your buddies at the airforce and keep the skies clear for us, because I’m going _fast_. You can come along on Jemma, as long as you both can keep up.”

Both Rhodey and Jemma let out a squawk of offence, much to Tony’s amusement. He huffed out smoky laughter, and then stepped off the edge of his tunnel into thin air.

# # # # # #

Tony soared through the clouds, trying to keep high in the night sky so as not to be spotted by civilians down in the town, as he headed for the city. Dragons were rare enough in populated places in the U.S. that they would get a pretty bad reaction if they were spotted in the cities, even flying several hundred feet up in the sky.

With his large wingspan, he was quickly outdistancing Rhodey and Jemma, but he couldn’t slow down, couldn’t wait for them. He had to hurry, because Obie was going back to try to kill Pepper. The night air streamed past his sleek form as he flew as fast he could. The bright city lights clustered closer together and increased in frequency as he flew closer to the city. Skyscrapers were looming out of the glittering ground now as Tony passed the city limits, and he angled his flight downwards.

When he spotted the familiar shape of the Stark Industries’ building, he slowed the beat of his wings into a gliding flight, wondering where to land on the tall building. It was then that he noticed a large dragon, a gunmetal gray instead of red and gold, crouched on the roof of the squat, wide building next to the taller Stark Industries’ corporate building. Holy shit, was that Obie in dragon shape?

Tony squinted at the dragon, but couldn’t make out what he was doing. The squat building housed the power generator, where the massive arc reactor lay. Was Obie trying to do something with the large arc reactor now?

Tony flapped his wings, changing direction slightly so that he arrowed down towards the power generating building instead. He slowed his descent by cupping his wings, catching the wind draft.  

Then he noticed the figure with red hair on the ground, behind a figure in a dark blue armor.

 _Pepper_. And was that… _Steve_? What was Steve doing here?

Even as he watched, the large steel-gray dragon — who could only be Obie, the coincidence was too great otherwise — roared and leapt off the building to the ground, snapped large jaws at Steve and Pepper. Steve pushed Pepper further back and hit the side of his shield against Obie’s jaw. Obie reared back in pain, and Tony exulted at the sight. He had firsthand experience on how much that shield could hurt, and he was hoping Steve wasn’t holding back at all.

Silently, without any warning, Tony landed on Obie with his talons outstretched, gouging deep into Obie’s broad back. Obie roared in rage, rearing back and away from Steve and Pepper.

Tony flexed his claws, trying to dig in deeper and do more damage, but Obie flung out his wings and threw himself back. The force of the movement jarred Tony loose and sent him flapping back, only staying in the air through ungainly quick beats of his wings. Then he flapped harder, taking himself higher, just in time to avoid Obie snaking around and trying to take a bite out of his leg.

“ _You_ ,” Obie roared. “You’re like a little flying cockroach.”

Obie took to the air as well, flapping hard to gain momentum. To Tony’s displeasure, he realized that Obie was a bigger dragon. He hadn’t thought about the fact that Obie’s larger size in real life might translate to a larger dragon when shapeshifted too. But why this gunmetal gray color? Yinsen had said the guardian dragon of his village had been gold in color. Maybe the dragon shape took on the colors you most associated with in real life.

But now was no time to consider the intricacies of a shapeshifting spell. Tony was spiralling higher into the sky, trying to keep out of reach from Obie’s biting and clawing range while drawing him further away from people and buildings. But Obie was catching up fast, roaring with fury and flying at great speed for his bulk. It was shocking how well Obie was controlling his new dragon body, compared to how Tony had struggled with the transformation at first. Maybe it was all that time Obie spent riding along and taking over his companion vulture’s body, so that he was no stranger to a winged creature’s form.

Tony was struggling to keep ahead, could feel that he had a much more limited power reserve compared to normal. The old arc reactor just didn’t have the same level of juice as the new one in Obie’s chest that Tony could see gleaming blue in the dark night. The old arc reactor was made in a cave out of scraps, and it could only power a dragon form for a very short term, twenty minutes at the most.

Wait, how was the new arc reactor staying in Obie’s chest? Did he embed it in his own chest? That was fucked up…

Obie screamed up at him, “For 30 years, I've been holding you up, propping up the company when you were too busy screwing around. But now, a new dawn has come for the company, and nothing is going to stand in my way. Least of all you!”

With a final push of those wider gray wings, Obie reached up and snapped his jaws around Tony’s leg, crunching into thick hide and muscles, fangs grinding into bone. Tony screamed, a reptilian shriek of pain and agony. His flapping wing stuttered, and he started to fall, going down head first. Obie released his grip on Tony’s leg and tried to bite at his torso. Tony flapped his wings awkwardly mid-fall, twisting in the air to try to right himself. When he realized how close he was to Obie, he reached out and tried to disembowel Obie. Damn, he wasn’t close enough for it, but his claws dug into Obie’s side, rending deep cuts into his body.

Tony spun in the air until he was facing right side up again, just in time for Obie to fling forward and grapple with him. Both pairs of wings worked frantically to keep their combined bulk airborne as taloned feet scrabbled at each other, trying to cut into flesh and dig in. Obie jerked forward, tried to bite down on Tony’s neck, but Tony jerked to the side in time for Obie to sink his fangs into the top of Tony’s foreleg instead. He growled in pain and took a retaliatory bite at Obie’s face.

Tony’s teeth scored a sharp gash near Obie’s eye, enough for Obie to let go and push away from Tony with a thundering roar.

Obie flapped jerkily in the air, disoriented with the blood gushing into his eye. Tony tried to ignore the searing pain in his hindleg and foreleg. Instead, he flapped his wings harder to stay level with Obie, not wanting to cede the higher vantage point. He knew he was coming close to the end of the arc reactor’s use for fuelling the dragon’s form. He could feel lethargy seeping into his limbs, the taste of his magic fluctuating.

There was no more time left, he had to end this.

He darted forward, baring his teeth. “Hey, Obie, you figured out the fire problem?”

“Fire problem?” Obie snarled, still struggling to see through one eye.

“Yeah, the fiery build up, kind of hard to know what to do with it. Unless you’ve had some practice.” Tony drew in a sharp breath, lungs and torso inflating, before he poured fiery blue flames out of his wide jaws, bathing Obie in them.

Obie shrieked, writhed, tried to fly down to escape the fire. But Tony pursued him, pouring fire onto him for as long as it would last, searing and boiling Obie from within his scales. This might just work.

Then his flames spluttered out. Tony coughed, tried to draw in another deep breath to unleash his fire, but he only choked and gasped. Oh fuck…

The shift was failing. He could feel the heat in him sputtering out and just dissipating into the air. His body felt like smoke, insubstantial, as his scales tried to keep him in the same form. But all that impossible strength and raw magic was fading and fading fast. His lungs felt too small for his body, insufficient to power this frame. He arrowed down as quickly as he could, tucking his wings in so he was hurtling downwards even as he felt like he was shaking to pieces.

At the last minute, he snapped his wings out, slowed his speeding descent enough to see Steve’s horrified wide eyes, to notice that Pepper wasn’t there at least, but why was Steve still here?

Then the ground was coming up fast, but it didn’t matter, because the world grayed out as Tony… _dissolved_.

He gasped, felt his human limbs and body come together in a breathless moment as he hit the ground at a roll. The weightless instant between shifts had reduced the impact significantly, and it felt almost like he had fallen off his bed. Albeit onto solid concrete. While naked.

Tony groaned, turning over and trying to gain his orientation. He didn’t have time. He realized he was pushing himself up on the roof of the Stark Industries’ squat, power-generating building. He was just a few feet from the glass roof that looked down into the giant arc reactor taking up all the space within.

“Tony! Are you okay?” Steve was suddenly there, helping Tony to his feet before looking away hurriedly, blushing in a rather adorable way despite the desperate hour. With quick jerky movements, Steve pulled off his blue long sleeved scalemail uniform, revealing a white tank top underneath it, and handed the jacket to Tony.

Tony suppressed the dozen quips he wanted to make and instead said, “What are you doing here? Where did Pepper go?”

Steve grimaced. “It’s tied in to my identity. Look, Tony, it wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I just wanted something different, something _normal_. Or as normal as it gets with you.” He gave Tony a knowing, wry look. “But it was selfish. I know you didn’t want my help, but I left and went to S.H.I.E.L.D. asking them to help Pepper’s investigation. Turns out, they were already trying to contact her. We were looking for her at the Stark Industries tower when she found us first and said she had evidence that Obadiah Stane had a hand in your kidnapping and murder attempt. We were going to arrest him when he came charging out as you see him now.”

Tony’s quick mind took in all of this even as his chest heaved, struggling to settle back to the sensation of having a human body instead of a very large fire-breathing reptile. He was tying the jacket around his waist, letting most of the cloth cover his junk in a weird ass-less loincloth style. He mentally promised to make Steve a new jacket after this because surely he wouldn’t want the jacket back after knowing it touched Tony’s dick.

If they made it out of this alive.

“Okay, let’s talk more about all that later, because we’re in deep trouble if that fire hasn’t taken out Obie. This old arc reactor is out of juice, there isn’t enough to sustain a dragon’s shape. It’s got minimal power, just enough left to keep my heart beating— Holy fuck!” Tony said as Obadiah came to a clumsy, crashing stop on the ground in front of the building they were on.

The pavement cracked and smashed beneath the force of his landing, concrete crumbling beneath Obie’s large black claws. Obie roared in fury, his face and back scorched, scales falling off in chunks from Tony’s flame. He leapt up onto the roof of the building, sending a tremor through the rooftop at the impact.

Before Tony could say a word, Steve launched himself at Obie. Not being on the receiving end of Steve’s fighting prowess right now, Tony had a few seconds to appreciate how graceful and ingenious Steve was at fighting against a creature several times his size. And that there really was no way that Steve was a regular human being. He was too fast, much too strong, as he ducked beneath Obie’s larger limbs, dived over a swinging tail. He got up onto Obie’s back where Obie couldn’t easily reach him with his claws and fangs, swinging his shield down over and over again, smashing through scales and flesh. When Obie reared up with a snarl of pain, Steve flipped off Obie’s back to land on his feet. Then he dodged Obie’s slavering and snapping jaws as Obie tried his best to corner and _eat_ Steve.

Alright, fucking hell, Tony needed to stop staring agape at Steve’s amazing grace. There would be time for that later.

The problem was that magic couldn’t summon something from nothing. It’s why weapons still had to be made, why magic was often used to enhance things, to embody objects. You could create a pretty destructive magical missile with a spelled targeting system if you had some gasoline on hand and something to create a magical bond with the target, but you couldn’t create a magical missile from nothing.

And what Tony had right now was all of nothing. He was completely nude, with only Steve’s jacket around his waist.

All he had was his environment. 

He could work with that.

Tony murmured under his breath, “Hey, FRIDAY, you there?”

“Tony?” FRIDAY whispered in his ear, the tug of wind against his fingers, his name a bare slither of sound.

“Can you get your friends, all the wind sprites around here, to just blow that giant gray dragon down, a super wind tunnel to drop him please? I promise plenty of magic for you guys after, a lot of it, you guys know I’m good to pay up.”

“No problem, boss,” FRIDAY said with a whispering tinkle. “Sounds like fun.”

“But don’t hit Steve, the guy without a top and in blue pants!” Tony added in a hurry.

“We know Steve. You _like_ Steve,” FRIDAY said, a ruffling breeze through his hair.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Stop gossiping and help with the evil dragon please.”

“Got it,” she said, before the wind started to rise all around him.

Tony wracked his brain even as he watched the wind started to buffet Obie and distract him from Steve with the unusual force hammering against him. Steve was smart enough to notice what was happening immediately, and ducked to the side, getting out of the way of the wind tunnel forming out of nowhere. But being the reckless idiot that Steve was, he still went in for a few blows from the side, kicking and smashing at a wing that wasn’t caught in the wind tunnel.

Tony knew this wouldn’t be enough. Without magic sources to feed on, the wind sprites couldn’t sustain this kind of unusual energy.

Obie went on all fours to brace against the wind, trying to get as low to the ground as possible. His head on his long neck swung around to glare at Tony. “You wretch, you think this will be enough to stop me? You’re a fool! You and your pathetic sprites can’t keep this up forever and I’ll destroy you once this paltry trick ends.”

Unfortunately, Obie was right. What Tony needed was to end this fight and end it now.

“FRIDAY, you still there?” Tony whispered. “Do you know where Pepper and Rhodey are?”

Wind sprites were really good as eyes and ears, and FRIDAY tended to stay near Tony, asking other sprites to perform favors.

“They’re taking shelter in this building. Rhodey is complaining that he doesn’t have any weapons on him, and he’s not willing to risk Jemma against a dragon,” FRIDAY repeated.

Tony stepped to the side, looking down through the glass ceiling. The blue glow of the massive arc reactor filled the large room below.

He had an idea.

“Tell Rhodey and Pepper that they need to overload the reactor and blast the roof. Pepper needs to go to the central console and open up all the circuits. Rhodey needs to scrub out the magical protection spells against the overload. Shoot off the runes if he needs to.”

“Will do.”

Tony kept an eye on Obie while occasionally looking down to check when Pepper and Rhodey got his message and started executing his instructions. Obie was roaring with shattering volume due to his thwarted rage as the wind sprites pushed at him in one direction, and then reversed direction when he tried to move against them. He fell flat, wings struggling to go upright and head trying to push off the ground.

At one point, Steve used the wind behind his back to send him flying over Obie, hitting Obie hard in the head with his shield even as he tumbled through the air. Obie’s chin smashed into the ground, and Steve landed on the far side of Obie’s body with a twisting roll, the wind letting go of their hold on him. _That crazy adrenaline-junkie,_ Tony thought fondly. Steve seemed to have somehow found a way to coordinate with the wind sprites, which was pretty damn impressive.

Pepper and Rhodey were in view now, working at the panels of the large arc reactor. Good, good, they were almost ready.

And they were already out of time. Tony looked up to see Obie push up against the flagging wind, getting to his feet again.

“Boss, they’re running out of steam,” FRIDAY said.

Tony grimaced. “We need to buy Rhodey and Pepper some time.”

“What do we do?” She sounded worried, manifesting as a troubled breeze swirling around Tony.

“Distraction,” Tony said.

He stepped up so that he was standing on the glass ceiling that looked down on the giant arc reactor.

“Hey, Obie!” Tony shouted, standing there with his hands on his hips. “You know, I always knew you sucked as a businessman. You had a _weapons manufacturing company_ and you needed to resort to under-the-table dealings? Are you kidding? Did you run out of ideas or something?”

The wind sprites were still pushing on Obie, but not with as much force anymore. He growled, a long, low rumble, and took a slow, difficult step forward.

“You idiot boy, why do it by the books when you can make _more_ money! Don’t sell to the highest bidders, sell to all the bidders!” Obie snarled, large reptilian blue eyes burning with greed and lust. His scaly jaws opened in a fang-filled, mocking laugh. In that one moment, he seemed more like the clichéd hoarding dragon than Tony ever could be.

Tony took a few steps back, standing in the middle of the glass ceiling now. “Oh yeah, what are you going to sell without me around? You really think killing me is the best idea you’ve got?”

The wind was dying down substantially now. Steve ran in for a strike, but Obie gnashed his teeth at Steve, almost bit him in half before Steve rolled out of the way. Obie advanced another few steps, twisting his body to try to hit Steve with his large tail. The large, lashing tail kept Steve occupied for a moment as Obie continued to advance.

“I don’t need you anymore, Tony. You finally outdid yourself! You’d have made your father proud. You’ve made the best weapon yet, and I’m going to sell it to everyone who wants one. Right after I kill you with it,” Obie taunted.

FRIDAY brushed against his lashes, his ear. “Pepper and Rhodey say they’re ready now.”

“Tell them to pull it when I say so,” Tony said under his breath, taking another step back. “And tell the wind sprites to let up now.”

There was a short pause. “I told Pepper and Rhodey, but they said you’re on the ceiling, you’ll be caught in the blast and die. You need to get off it. Boss…”

“ _On my signal_ ,” Tony hissed.

Then he took another step back. Well, let it not be said that Tony didn’t excel when it came to taunting father figures.

“You’re all talk, Obie! You keep trying to kill me, but you can’t even get it right, because you know what, Obie, you’re a failure. You’ve always been a failure! You needed my genius to prop you up. Without Howard, you’re nothing, you would have been a broke, useless, car salesman,” Tony said, throwing his arms wide like it was the best joke he had ever heard.

Obie roared a bellowing cry of rage. With the wind suddenly gone from all around him, Obie threw himself forward. Wings spread and jaws wide open with gleaming shiny fangs, he looked like a hellbeast unleashed, ready to eat Tony alive.

“ _Now_ ,” Tony shouted, trying to dodge to the side, knowing he wasn’t going to make it, knowing he had cut it too close just to make sure that Obie would be right above the blast of the overloading arc reactor.

Something smashed into him from the side and Tony flew off the glass ceiling with great speed, just in time to feel the shockwave of an explosion. He had a second to catch a glimpse of blonde hair and blue eyes right before strong arms closed around him. The blue light that exploded out of the shattering ceiling took Obie straight in his chest, flinging him up into the air. Blue fire consumed him, blasting right through him.

The concussive force of it hurtled Steve and Tony through the air, flying further than Steve’s shove should have taken them, before they hit the ground once, and then they were suddenly rolling… and rolling off the edge of the roof. Steve tucked himself around Tony, folding his arms around Tony’s head in obvious protection.  The energy facility wasn’t that tall a building, but it would still hurt, enough for regular people like Tony to break his skull.

“FRIDAY!” Tony cried out.

The gust of air buffeted them, slowed their descent with jerky starts and stops until they were deposited onto the ground from six feet in the air. Tony gasped, landing on top of Steve who had turned so he took the brunt of the floor.

“Sorry, boss, kind of out of juice,” FRIDAY said.

“Thanks, FRIDAY,” Tony said, a little breathless. “You and your buddies can go feast on the energy from the arc reactor. That should be a lot.”

“Oooh,” FRIDAY cooed, and that was the only response she gave before going off in a gust of wind.

Tony realized he was still on top of Steve, faces only inches apart as he kept himself up by his forearms.

“Hi,” he said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Hi, I’m Steve Rogers. Nice to meet you,” Steve said, flashing Tony a happy, boyish grin.

“Hey, I’m Tony Stark, princess-kidnapping dragon and also that missing CEO of a… well, let’s just say a company that is going to go through some major changes,” Tony said with a grin of his own.

“You sure know how to show a guy a good time, Tony,” Steve said, waving a hand at their surroundings from where he still lay on the ground.

“I can only try. You make a great impression yourself. Those are some mad dragon-wrangling skills,” Tony said with a wink.

Steve looked a little abashed. “Yeah? Do you think you might need some dragon-wrangling skills around the place?”

“Most definitely. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a really high maintenance dragon around who always needs wrangling.”

Steve’s eyes looked amazingly blue and soft with affection. “Well, there’s this high maintenance knight, who has a lot of things to tell you, and might need a little wrangling too himself.”

Tony smiled. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

Clattering heels on pavement alerted Tony to company.

“Oh my god, Tony, are you okay— Where are your _pants_?” Pepper cried out.

Rhodey sighed audibly. “Come on, man, how many times do I have to see your bare ass? Is this really the time to be canoodling with the new hot guy?”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “He’s seen your bare ass a lot?”

It had been a hell of a day, and Tony had been running on adrenaline. Hell, in for a penny, in for a pound.

“Why? Jealous?” Tony said, heart skipping a beat as he pushed his luck.

Steve took a deep breath and met his gaze. “Maybe a little.”

Tony’s stomach swooped with excitement. He hadn’t been imagining things, imagining the electric chemistry between them, and what had seemed like interest in Steve’s eyes.

He beamed at Steve. “It’s a pretty great butt.”

Rhodey’s leather shoes were now visible at the periphery of Tony’s vision. “I’ve seen Tones in all states of nudity that comes from being his roommate at M.I.T. once upon a time and having to deal with his many drunken and nude antics once upon a time.”

“He was just as bad,” Tony reassured Steve.

Steve’s eyes were crinkling at the corners. “I would love to hear all about it.”

Pepper grumbled, “Oh for God’s sake, Tony. Could you please get up and stop mooning everyone? Oh, I give up, I guess I can buy a replacement jacket.”

Something soft settled over his bare ass, to cover his butt just like how Steve’s long sleeved top was covering his junk.

Tony sighed. “Guess the fun is over.”

He pushed up to his feet, holding Pepper and Steve’s jackets around his waist like a makeshift towel. Steve gracefully got to his feet and rubbed the back of his flushed neck.

“Lady— I mean, Pepper,” he said to Pepper, before noticing that Rhodey was someone he hadn’t met yet. “Uh, hi. You must be the one who has seen Tony’s bare ass a lot.”

“More than I want to,” Rhodey said, before smirking. “Which I suspect is the opposite of what you want.”

Steve blushed but shrugged. “I wouldn’t say no to it.”

Tony had to suppress the urge the gleefully point at Steve and announce, “Look what I bagged!”

Instead, he slung an arm around Steve’s shoulder, his other hand still holding up the jackets around his waist. “Back at ya.”

Steve looked pleased at the response and wrapped a free arm around Tony’s waist.

Pepper sighed and turned to look up at the roof of the building. “I think we have a dead dragon to deal with it.”

“Is he really dead?” Tony asked warily. He had seen Obie seemed to catch fire from the inside out, which was a disturbing sight, and something that would probably star in his nightmares as well now. But Obie had seemed really resilient and it was better safe than sorry.

“Jemma checked,” Rhodey confirmed. “And he’s dead for sure. He’s still in dragon form; I think you’ll need to take out the arc reactor for his body to revert back.”

Steve squeezed with the arm he had around Tony’s waist. “Hey, I think we have Coulson and other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents around here somewhere. They’re used to handling this kind of messes.”

Where had he heard the name Coulson before...

Pepper nodded in agreement. “I’ve just met Coulson. He does seem to know what he's doing and he already had an idea that Obadiah was behind this before we did. Turns out, that was why he was discreetly trying to contact me, pretending to be interested in Stark Industries' accounts.”

That was right, Pepper had told Tony about a guy named Coulson contacting her, but that she ignored his messages because she had no idea who he was. So S.H.I.E.L.D. had been poking around long before Obie decided to make his move.

On one hand, Tony was reluctant to let a bunch of suits take over this site of carnage on Stark Industries land. On the other hand…

Tony was tired. He had just killed — with the help of Rhodey and Pepper — his mentor, his once father figure. He was a mess of emotions: delight that Steve hadn’t really left and was here with him now; relief that everyone he loved had made it out of this alive; grief at remembering that he had once loved Obie too, the man who had been his father figure maybe more so than his own actual father, the man who had held his hand as a child, attended his graduation and clapped so proudly. The betrayal was bitter to swallow, and those murderous words had burned through the affection and faith he used to have in Obie… But the idea of having to go upstairs and deal with the corpse of his once-friend…

“Yeah, let S.H.I.E.L.D. deal with the body,” Tony said. “We’ll supervise, because I need to get the arc reactor and the scales Obie stole back.”

“I’ll help,” Steve offered.

Tony turned to him, looking at that beautiful knightly face and hopeful smile. “That’s… That would be perfect. Thank you.”

The grin he got in return told him he had made the right decision.

# # # # # #

** Epilogue **

Tony was resting on his side, an indolent sprawl of dragon limbs and wings and tail. Steve sat in a chair in front of Tony, sketching in his usual book.

“I still can’t believe you’re Captain America of the Howling Knights,” Tony grumbled.

“You’ve got all the evidence there,” Steve said, waving a pencil at the smoky images projected by JARVIS. 

They were classified files and images of Captain America. It was the day after everything that had gone down at Stark Industries, and Steve had just silently handed over the little storage device to Tony. Tony had read through it, stared at the unmistakeable pictures of Steve Rogers back in World War II, identical to the knight standing before him.

There were even pictures from before the magic potion Erskine had given him, and before the complex energy spell Tony’s own father, Howard Stark, had blasted into Steve through what he called the Vita-Ray machine. The Vita-Ray fed the spell within Erskine’s magic potion, giving the ingested potion enough power to work an incredible transformation on Steve. Forget about shapeshifting into a dragon with the boost of an external power source and affinity spells with dragon scales. Permanent and positive transformation magic on a human being was the hardest spell ever wrought. And something that could never again be replicated with the death of Erskine.

Other than the older photos, there were also photos of Steve in the present day. _In a block of ice_. There was a recording of S.H.I.E.L.D. melting the ice slowly, and shocked scientists scuttling around in a frenzy when they detected a very slow heartbeat, when they realized that Captain America inside the retrieved ice block was _still alive_. It was insane, it was impossible, but the truth seemed to be that back in World War II, Steve saved New York by crashing a plane full of armed bombs into the Arctic where he froze into a dreamless sleep until S.H.I.E.L.D. found him less than six months ago.

Sending Steve to save Pepper had been Fury's ruse all along. Fury had suspected the timing of Tony's disappearance, the dragon's appearance and Pepper's kidnapping were all too coincidental, so he had sent Steve to investigate the dragon, and Coulson to investigate Stark Industries. There was no way the one-eyed Spy of all Spies didn't have some sort of massive Future Probabilities Spell powered by ten nuclear reactors, because Fury seemed to have accurately predicted that Steve would melt Tony's defences far more successfully than any actual S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. 

Along with all the evidence concerning Steve's identity, there was also a copy of a file titled the Avengers Initiative which Tony had just skimmed. It was an intriguing idea, but Tony was parking that for another day. One life-changing revelation at a time.

Even with the images in front of him, Tony was hard pressed to believe that Steve was Captain America of the old stories.

“But you’re meant to be a myth!” Tony complained. “Just a nice bedtime story about superheroes and knights, who did the right thing, saved the princesses, punched the villains.”

“I never saved any princesses actually,” Steve said wryly.

“You’re ruining all my childhood stories,” Tony moaned, bringing up one wing to cover his face in dramatic misery.

Steve nudged his boot against Tony’s clawed foot. “And you’re ruining my sketch. I thought you said you would stay still for me.”

Tony peeked out from behind the shelter of his velvet red wing. “Isn’t the sketch done yet? It’s been hours.”

“It has been ten minutes, Sir,” JARVIS interjected, sounding almost fond.

“Ugh, don’t be so literal, you traitorous sprite-bot,” Tony said, folding his wing back down grumpily.

Steve shook his head, but he was smiling indulgently so Tony knew it would be all okay. “I guess I’m almost done anyway.”

“Ooohhh, I want to see,” Tony said.

Carefully, Tony curled his large tail around Steve and pulled him in, chair and all. Steve held onto his chair with one hand and laughed.

“Tony, stop, I can walk,” Steve protested, even though he never stopped laughing.

“But this is faster. Now, let me see,” Tony said.

He used a careful claw to prod at Steve’s sketchbook. Steve tipped it forward to show Tony what he had been sketching. Tony had seen Steve’s painting, so he knew Steve was capable of beautifully-rendered and realistic drawings.

This wasn’t one of them.

It was a cartoonish drawing of Tony as a dragon, lying on his back, with a big pot belly. His eyes were closed, with little snoring ‘Z’s coming out of his mouth. Drawn in thick, dark lines, the caricature of Tony had a big dragon’s head and tiny little wings that he was lying on.

“That’s not me,” Tony stated, outraged.

“I don’t know, it looks pretty accurate to me,” Steve said with a grin.

“I can’t believe you took ten minutes to draw that,” Tony exclaimed and nudged Steve’s side with a heavy head.

Steve hooked his arm over Tony’s spines on the back of his head, scratching the side of his face hard where there was a blend of red and gold scales. Tony couldn’t help the pleased rumble at the lovely scratching.

“Not fair,” Tony complained, feeling languid and lazy again.

Steve pressed a kiss to Tony’s head. “All’s fair in love and war.”

A large wing folded around Steve, pressing him close to Tony’s cheek. He purred at the feel of Steve enclosed within his wing, pressed up against his face.

“You big sap,” Tony said, before shifting his forelegs to work at his chest.

Within a minute, his scales were dissolving into smoky gray before reforming into tender human skin, glowing blue eyes closing before reopening to show warm brown ones that looked into Steve’s eyes from very close up. After the transformation, they had somehow ended up with their arms around each other.

“Hi, Tony,” Steve breathed.

“Hello, treasure,” Tony said with a warm smile, pulling Steve closer and rubbing their noses together.

Steve smiled, having admitted previously that he rather liked that nickname, not minding at all the way Tony seemed to say it with gratified possessiveness.

Steve stroked a hand down Tony’s bare side, asking quietly, “You understand why I didn’t tell you about my identity at first, right? It’s not that I didn’t want to. I just… it was nice. Not having someone look at me with the weight of my history in their eyes. It was nice to see someone who liked me for who I am, not because of this exaggerated myth.”

Tony thought about how gratifying it had been to have Steve enjoy his company even when he didn’t know the real identity behind the dragon form, how easy it had been.

“Yeah, I get that,” Tony said. “Although I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit if you think people only like you because they think you’re Captain America. Steve Rogers is a pretty amazing guy.”

Steve smiled. “I would say Tony Stark is a pretty swell fella as well.”

“Swell fella? Sounds like ringing endorsement,” Tony murmured, leaning forward in invitation.

“It’s a formal recommendation from Captain America,” Steve agreed as he bent closer in turn.

As if he was savouring the anticipation, Steve slanted his head and dragged his nose against Tony’s, moving until he kissed Tony on his cheek. Tony drew in a deep breath, savoring Steve’s warm male scent, tinged with metal and charcoal. Steve pressed soft kisses to cheek and chin until Tony finally turned and brushed their lips together. The soft peck turned into a slow languorous kiss, and Tony’s bare toes curled at the tender way their lips met again, as they deepened the kiss so that Tony could feel every millimetre of wet skin and flesh as Steve slid his tongue against Tony’s.

When they parted, mouths red and wet, Tony offered breathlessly, “How about another sketch?”

Steve raised an eyebrow, trying to steady his own breathing as well. “Can you stay still longer than ten minutes this time?”

“Maybe if I have the proper incentive,” Tony said. “You can sketch my scales this time.”

“You’re not in your dragon shape,” Steve said, slightly distracted with his blue eyes trained on Tony’s mouth again. He was clearly not thinking about any art projects.

Tony pulled back a little and ran a provocative finger down his own arched throat. “Doesn’t mean I don’t have scales.”

Steve’s eyes followed Tony’s finger, followed it down to his collarbones where red and gold scales flashed beneath thin skin, where the hint of fine scales scattered under warm flesh and trailed down Tony’s pectorals.

“That kind of sketch,” Steve said, his voice sounding a little hoarse.

They hadn’t done anything beyond kissing and then falling asleep, curled around each other. They had both been too exhausted.

Tony decided it was time to do something about that.

“Yeah, that kind of sketch, honeybuns,” Tony said with a slow smile. “You did say something about wanting to see my bare ass.”

Steve’s eyes were a dark blue now, pupils dilated. “I did. Yes.”

“You can check if the scales go all the way down,” Tony said, twining his arms around Steve again.

Steve pressed his nose behind Tony’s ear and breathed in deeply. Then he murmured, “I’ll be very thorough with my checks, dragon.”

Tony shivered in delight at the warm breath against his ear. “I’m counting on it, dear knight.”

** THE END **

Coda: 

“I'm sorry, Mister Stark, but do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a trained dragon that conveniently fought off the evil dragon that had kidnapped Princess Virginia, and for some reason they chose Stark Industries as the location of their battle?”

Tony squirmed, clutching at his cue cards. “I know that it's confusing. It is one thing to question the official story, and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I somehow am in any way involved in that dragon heroically saving the day from other evil dragons—”

“I never said you were heroically involved in anything, let alone dragons,” the blonde reporter interrupted.

“Didn't you? Well, good, because that would be outlandish and fantastic. How on earth would I be involved in something like dragon fights; that would be just too awesome and heroic. I'm just not the heroic or draconic type. Clearly. With this laundry list of character defects and all the mistakes I've made, largely public.”

Rhodey leaned over. “Just stick to the cards, man.”

But Tony could see Steve over the crowd of reporters, standing at the back of the room. He was shaking his head at Tony, as if knowing what was going to happen next, but at the same time, he was also smiling, that wide boyish grin, like he knew what was going to happen. He thought Tony was crazy but he would welcome it all with wide arms as long as they got to do it together.

Yeah, they would be okay.

“Okay, yeah,” Tony said, grinning at everyone. “The truth is… I’m Iron Dragon.”

**Author's Note:**

> I use the location Dume as a reference to canon, where Tony’s Malibu mansion is over Point Dume. But it’s not meant to imitate Point Dume. 
> 
> Later on, they admit everything about Pepper faking her own kidnapping so she can openly renounce her position in the royal family and eventually be made CEO. :D
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I didn't end up having the time to write what I wanted exactly, so I'm sorry if something seems to be missing in the story. As a result of that, I'm actually planning to write an entirely different and new dragon!Tony AU, so keep an eye out for that. :)
> 
> Edit to add: For additional art, please check out:  
> 1\. More doodles from my RBB artist [dksartz](http://dksartz.tumblr.com/) which can be found [here!](http://dksartz.tumblr.com/post/174261922763/sorta-belated-but-surprise-have-some-bonus) Please check them out, they're so cute and story-related too! Let dksartz know how lovely their art is!
> 
> 2\. Art from [atoria](http://atoria420.tumblr.com/) who drew the [little dragon doodle Steve did of Tony in the Epilogue](http://atoria420.tumblr.com/post/174232577862/for-janonny-because-tony-is-a-dragon-and-steve-is). Please have a look at how adorable it is and let the artist know!
> 
> Edit to add, take 2: TanakaYuuko pointed out something I totally forgot so I'm just very not subtly slipping it into the story. Thanks, TanakaYuuko! ^_^; 
> 
> Also, no, Fury doesn't have a Future Probabilities Spell. He's just good at reading Tony. :D


End file.
